Dr. Peadar Gilligan:

There has been a significant lack of engagement with regard to public health - that is absolutely the case. It is really concerning that in the midst of a pandemic our colleagues in public health are not being given a consultant contract commensurate with their specialist training. That has to be addressed as a matter of urgency.

We were asked about the recruitment of future consultants. It is absolutely the case that the 30% cut is the major barrier to our ability to be able to recruit the specialists the country needs. Our non-consultant hospital doctors are our doctors in training. We have 250 additional interns in the system currently, but there has been no commitment to date to provide training posts to expand that number and make these posts available for these staff.