Dr. Colm Henry:

There are always more applications than there are posts available. Last year we offered, as a once-off, in excess of 1,100 posts. A significant number of final year medical students turned them down and ultimately we ended up with 992 interns. The feedback we received is that the aspect that was of greatest value was the overlap between those interns starting early and those who were already in position. We heard earlier about the falling numbers of Covid cases in hospital and the roll-out of the vaccination programme, which has seen a significant fall in hospital-acquired Covid and in infection among healthcare workers. It seems we will not be in the same position in terms of need this July as we were in July of last year.