Mr. Anthony Owens:

I am not the one who deserves sympathy.

The doctors who work the hours deserve the sympathy but I appreciate the Deputy's sentiment. The figures that we are being presented with seem to show that we are on the cusp of compliance with the working time directive. These are HSE figures but anecdotal evidence and evidence from the Medical Council's own surveys suggests that we are quite some way from compliance. We are conducting a survey at the moment, which is still open. We have had several hundred responses so far, which is pretty good in medical terms because doctors are suffering from survey fatigue as well as work fatigue. Approximately half of those who have responded to us are still working in excess of 24-hour shifts, with a slightly smaller number working in excess of 48-hour weeks. The Your Training Counts survey suggested that one third of respondents were working in excess of 60 hours per week. This is not good. We are not there yet but we are better than we were previously. There is still some way to go but we cannot begin to crack the nut until we see accurate and transparent figures from the HSE and other employers.