Dr. Matthew Sadlier:

We have to be able to provide a better quality of training for the doctors in order for them to get the experience and the training they need to develop the skills and qualifications they need to become specialists in order to deliver the service back to the people. That takes investment in medical education and investment in making sure we are compliant with the European working time directive, which we know we are not. It takes investment to get protected training time for trainees and to get access to the correct equipment and resources, and also to have the required posts available in all the various specialties.

Ultimately, Ireland is a small country. Nobody has ever won a Nobel prize in medicine for research done in Ireland. We will always be dependent on a certain cohort of doctors going abroad to learn new skills and new innovations because we are not a country that produces new innovations in surgical techniques or medical techniques, largely due to our size. We will always depend on doctors going abroad to train and then bring skills home, and that is a fairly logical proposition.

If we were able to provide adequate working conditions for junior doctors, similar to what they get when they move to Australia or Canada, and to provide the adequate training opportunities they get in those countries, I do not think we would be talking about doctors leaving this country in any way, shape or form.