Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

These difficulties do not arise in the private system which, to be fair, does not deal with trauma and accident and emergency cases, which cause many of the difficulties in the public system. I acknowledge that the health care system is experiencing a major shortage of consultants, which is why it is extremely important to get a new contract of employment that suits the public health care system in particular. That would greatly add to the system. For example, currently only a consultant can discharge a patient. We are too heavily dependent on junior hospital doctors, of which there are 4,000 whereas there are 2,000 consultants. We need to reverse that balance, which would greatly help, particularly in the discharge area. Instead of services being led by consultants, they would be delivered by them. That process proves highly successful in other countries and I have no doubt it will do so here also.

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