Dr. Brendan Doody:

I echo what Mr. Ryan has said. There has been a major expansion in child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, over the past eight to ten years and there has been a significant increase in the number of consultant child and adolescent psychiatrists. On the one hand we are developing new services and creating new posts while at the same time there is a turnover of existing posts with retirements. A number of years ago, many higher trainees left the country to take up employment opportunities abroad. The reality is there is a worldwide shortage of child and adolescent psychiatrists. They are mobile and there are worldwide opportunities. Those who would have been eligible for consultant posts would have most frequently gone to either Australia or Canada. On a positive note, the demand with intake into higher training places in child and adolescent psychiatry is now exceeding the number of places. It will take a number of years before these higher trainees complete training. Basic training takes three to four years and higher training is a further three years. There is going to be a lag with the new consultant posts coming on stream. It is one factor.

Another factor may be geographical and it is across the various disciplines.

For recruitment, as can be seen in other countries, there may be geographical as well as service factors. One needs to consider many factors. What may apply in one area may not necessarily be at issue in another.

We are becoming more attractive for external consultants to come and work here. Some consultants who work in the UK may now consider coming to Ireland and taking up posts here. Even in the case of recruitment from recruitment agencies to fill posts on a temporary basis, the agencies suggest that consultants in the UK in locum positions, or European consultants who may have chosen to go to the UK, now consider Ireland to be an option. It will take a number of years before we fill all the posts permanently and it will depend on the demand as we create new services. As we have created more specialist services, we have experienced that the posts are taken up by existing consultants. We fill one post but it creates a vacancy somewhere else.