Ms Ginny Hanrahan:

We have a recognition process. Anybody who qualifies in Ireland and comes off a course that has been approved can apply to register. For people from Northern Ireland or any other part of the world, there is a process whereby we have to go through a review of their courses. We apply the EU legislation across the board. Once they get their applications in, we have up to four months to make that decision, but we get it done within about ten weeks. We have an initiative with what we call frequently seen qualifications. For example, at the moment, we do not have to review social workers from the Ulster University, UU, because so many have come through. We are saying we will just get them through, so they are getting through much quicker. We are trying to roll that out to more courses. We looked at radiography as well with Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh and UU. At the last registration board meeting, there were about six applicants who basically we did not have to go through this process for because the courses have got through. We are trying to improve that as much as possible. We have up to four months to do a full review and we usually get them through within ten weeks.