Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There are several pieces to this. The first was to remove the ban on non-EU doctors training as specialists, and that was received well by those doctors. We are looking at the stamp 4 matter, as the Deputy outlined, and it takes in the Departments dealing with health, justice and perhaps foreign affairs. I want to see this moved quickly. The Deputy has correctly point out that we have non-EU doctors who have had the training stipulation removed but are still caught with the stamp 4 element. I will get the Deputy a detailed update on that.

More broadly with the non-consultant hospital doctors we are increasing the number of training posts and we must increase it further. That partly involves increasing the consultant body workforce because there tends to be one-to-one training relationships there as well.