Dr. Colm Henry:

What the Deputy is referring to is the additional interns brought on earlier last year. What we did last year was addressed by some of the Deputy's colleagues earlier. Normally, the number of interns in the training system, which is operated in conjunction with the six medical schools responsible for overseeing the training, is approximately 730. Last year, we offered places to all graduates and of those 1,100 graduates, 992 took up the offer. This was a once-off exercise last year, in view of the position we were in with the surge. It was not part of the overall medical workforce planning, which involves not just the intern year but creating training places for them afterwards, up to higher specialty training and progression to general practice, hospital consultants or public health. It was never the intention to maintain this beyond last year.

We are reviewing the current configuration of intern training, the quality of the training and the number of 734, which we will revert to this year. We are maintaining the overlap we had last year, whereby the newly qualified medical students began work following early final medical exams on 25 May. This was much earlier than the usual second week of July. We hope to have an overlap of one to two weeks this year as it was particularly beneficial last year. It is not the current plan to maintain the numbers at 1,100. We offered places to 1,100 and a significant proportion turned them down and left the country to go elsewhere.