Dr. Mark Murphy:

I echo what Ms Coulter said. In the view of many of my colleagues who work all over the country, the treatment of non-EU doctors was wholeheartedly unethical. They were treated appallingly. Even from the point of view of the optics, it is very bad treatment by an employer and symbolises what is wrong. It is tied with the career plan. I do not want to be too philosophical, but like all employees and others, NCHDs just want to have basic needs met, as per Maslow's hierarchy of needs. We want security; to know whether we will have a job in July and whether we can stay in Ireland. For example, we do not have access to water when working 72 hours, with the result that we do not pee. Honestly, these are the things about which we think. We face horrific things in our work.

Career planning is another issue. I refer to the UK or Australian system. A doctor is trained for two years at basic level and then progresses to a specialist training programme for six to 12 months. We want a training period of five years which would lead to consultant level in order that we could provide great care. We do not want to be middle grade NCHDs who are a permanent feature of the Irish system.

We want career planning in Ireland. How can we ensure it is introduced? We know what to do. It is a longer-term issue and we need to focus on it. We need more consultants. It is disgraceful that current medical students are not guaranteed employment in Ireland. We do not have enough consultants and we are having trouble recruiting NCHDs. However, interns will be unemployed because we and the other stakeholders are not involved in career planning. We need to tie up medical school graduates to a quick, expedient training course in order that they might become consultants and GPs.