Dr. Anthony Breslin:

When we are investigating a complaint we compare like with like. If someone is working in a small hospital, we look at what is expected for them working there versus someone working in a larger hospital. We do take that into consideration. Deputy O'Connell mentioned competence. We do have a competence scheme set up and 97% of doctors are registered and participating in continuous professional development, CPD. We did have to do a substantial amount of work to get all doctors signed up. Again, doctors not on the special register did require more work from us and the postgraduate training bodies to be involved.

The location of issues that arise was mentioned. We do see some patterns in some of the hospitals that are more likely to have staff not on a specialist register. On the query in respect of changes to legislation on access to non-EU doctors for training posts, that should not and will not have any impact on the quality of care. It should enhance that. Deputy Louise O'Reilly has left but she did have a query on doctors from overseas not doing exams. I answered that with an earlier question. I will reiterate. Before overseas doctors are registered here, they either have to do an exam here or have an equivalent internationally recognised exam done in another country. No doctor gets on the register without some assessment of his or her clinical abilities.