Ms Angela Fitzgerald:

It is also a testament to the surgeons in Beaumont who have agreed to continue to work on the rota, which continues as normal. Last year, there was an increase on the previous year in terms of the number of donors under the living donor programme. What we are looking at is both short-term and medium-term solutions. Positively, there has been very good collaboration between Beaumont and St. Vincent's at two levels, one of which is retrieval. One of the reasons transplant is not an attractive discipline is that people are up at night. A surgeon gets called in to retrieve organs and then has to transplant them. We are looking at what happens in other countries where there is a shared rota around retrieval. It will help immediately. The other issue is the pancreatic programme which Professor Hickey was involved in. We are looking at ways for St. Vincent's and Beaumont to collaborate. The important message is that the programme is stable right now. Some immediate actions are being taken to deliver on the transplant complement. The other thing we are looking at is that transplant surgeons also do urology work. We are looking at developing urologist posts, which has happened. The post holders have been appointed and will take up their duties. That will ease the burden of the workload.

The other question raised was on donation. It is fair to say that last year donation levels dropped. It is not always understood why that happens. What we have looked at is what works well in other countries. The Spanish model is one under which consultants are appointed who promote the concept of donation actively within their hospitals. I think that is what was referred to in Cork. Six posts have been approved, one for each hospital group. The role of the post holders will be to advocate actively with families to donate organs. The posts have been approved and the recruitment process is under way. We are also changing the model of co-ordination for procurement, which will also enhance donation rates. The last thing is that we have put nursing staff in who will promote organ donation on the ground. A number of immediate actions are happening in respect of both the short term and the medium term.