Mr. Robert Watt:

It is something we could set out in the note. A lot of young graduates do their basic training and go away but they do come back - I believe the latest numbers are that 70% or 80% do come back. They go away for a few years but they do return. Clearly there is an issue around retention. There is an issue around the non-consultant hospital doctors and a working group has been established to address various working conditions there, which we are all aware of with regard to hours, rosters, and the moving around in a way that is not necessarily family friendly.

So, absolutely, the Minister has made it clear on this. I will use that dreadful expression "multifaceted", but there are a number of different areas here. To be perfectly frank, I admit that in the past, there has been a failure to properly plan in terms of workforce. Absolutely. We have responded, particularly in the last year or two, but we need to do better. There needs to be a step change, whether that involves a radical expansion of the capacity of the existing medical schools in Ireland, or whether it requires a complete reorientation of the model, or whether we need to establish new medical schools. I was very interested in comments made recently, they may have been by Alistair Darling, but by a former Secretary for Health in the UK. He talked about his ambitions and realised that even when they doubled the number of places there, it still was not enough. The western developed world is thankfully facing a success - as Mr. Reid mentioned earlier - which is our life expectancy. It is currently one of the highest in the EU. The increase in life expectancy is, of course, a positive but it does link to a very different type of model of care than that in the past, and the demands are just very different. We are going to have to do that. We definitely welcome that. Deputy Shortall referred to the commitment by the Minister, Deputy Harris, and we should absolutely engage on that and really have a step change now.