Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On the challenges facing the health service, for hospitals located outside of the main centres of Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway, it is difficult to fill a huge number of posts, whether they be registrars, senior registrars or senior house officers, SHOs, because the number of people coming in from outside of the European Union now is decreasing as well. We are also finding it difficult to fill consultant posts in smaller hospitals and do not even have any applicants for a lot of those posts. Where is the long-term planning? How will this issue be dealt with over the next three to four years? I ask because I do not believe that we are dealing with this matter.