Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish to ask the professional bodies how serious a clinical risk this is. From the public's perspective, we have heard about CervicalCheck. Doctors are withholding important information from patients in some cases to the point that, when referring to the ethical duty of consultants and activities relating to CervicalCheck, the Taoiseach said in the Chamber yesterday that the guidelines "are not optional and doctors may be struck off for not following them". We have heard today that there are non-consultant hospital doctors who are not sitting the exams and that there are also non-consultant hospital doctors who we bring into this country, who are good enough to work in our hospitals but who are not worthy of further training. We have a bizarre system of apartheid within our hospital system whereby we have one hospital doctor from Pakistan, Sudan or South Africa who is allowed to train and another from Japan, South Korea or Canada who is not allowed to train. These are serious issues. In terms of what we are hearing with regard to, for example, a member of the public believing he or she is talking to a specialist in circumstances where that individual is not, in fact, a specialist, will the professional bodies and the Medical Council indicate if there is a clinical risk involved or if this is simply an administrative issue?