Professor Brian Lenehan:

If the Senator is referring specifically to the emergency department, as with all emergency departments, the consultant cover in the emergency department is dependent on the current consultant contract. A consultant is on site from 8 a.m. to 1.p.m. He or she does five hours, which would be the same in all emergency departments around the country. Historically, University Hospital Limerick had a very low number of non-consultant hospital doctors, NCHDs, in its emergency department. We have the busiest emergency department in the country with 76,000 presentations. The next highest emergency department when it comes to presentations is the Mater, which has 100% more non-consultant hospital doctors providing a service across the 365 days of the year. That has been highlighted to the-----