Ms Rosarii Mannion:

On Senator Colm Burke's question of whether communication has issued, in terms of the cohort of the public health sector about which we are speaking now, there are 127. We are case managing those on an individual basis to assist and support the relevant doctors to come through this process as appropriate. This is happening at hospital group level. With the appointment of our interim chief clinical officer we will have greater visibility at a central level and we will be attending to that in a very focused way.

Deputy Murphy O'Mahony asked if a similar process is in place for the section 39 agencies. By way of clarification, because I would not like to mislead the committee, under the Protection of Employees (Fixed Term Work) Act 2003, employees can acquire a contract of indefinite duration. Within the cohort post-2008, we have ten that will acquire a contract of definite duration. In terms of the section 39 agencies, as the Deputy will be aware - this has been the subject of discussion by this committee - section 39 staff are not our employees. However, a similar process should apply and we do part-fund some of those agencies.

On the Deputy's second question of why nothing has been done to date, I do not accept that. It might not be visible, but quite a lot has been done to date. I have previously referenced the report commissioned by our director general and chaired by Professor Frank Keane: Towards Successful Consultant Recruitment, Appointment and Retention, which was published in February 2007 and is available on our website, which I can share with the committee. It picked up on this issue as one for us to address. It is also on the organisation's risk register at the most senior level. We are attending to it but we need to progress it.