Professor Sean Daly:

To be honest, we are quite a distance away. The Health Service Executive must realise that it needs to put significant finance into this. The equipment is not the real burden, rather it is getting the individuals trained up. There is an MSc programme in UCD which takes 16 months and at the end, one is certainly skilled to realise what is not normal. That is the key thing. The other problem is one which is plaguing the service in the UK. Every woman in the UK is entitled to two ultrasounds. There is an early pregnancy ultrasound where one might diagnose multiple pregnancies and significant abnormalities which can be diagnosed early like anencephaly and women are offered screening for Down's syndrome. Then one has the anomaly scan. The difficulty is getting people trained and then keeping them within the system. It is a tough job scanning people every 25 minutes for a whole day, day in and day out. That is hard work. If one steps away from being a midwife, for example, one gives up night duty and weekend duty and one's pay suffers significantly. We need to reimburse these people properly to motivate them to stay within the service. Many people are trained and leave the service and that is a huge problem in the UK. That is the main challenge. We need to provide money to train people and then we need to recognise that they are skilled individuals and try to motivate them to stay within the service.