Dr. John Farrell:

Two years are spent in hospital posts. Mr. Foy said we therefore need good co-operation from the hospitals. Students would normally do four- or six-month placements in the various specialties, and then they would have two years supervised in a GP setting, which obviously involves a completely different model of care from the one provided by hospitals. They get their basic training in hospitals in paediatrics, obstetrics, psychiatry, and accident and emergency medicine, and then they spend two years under the tutorship of an experienced GP trainer. We are responsible for the delivery of that training. We took that over from the HSE in October last year.