Liam Twomey (Wexford, Fine Gael)

Has the Department ever seriously considered extending the consultants' working day from its current format of 8 a.m. to whenever? If work was done on the issue in the Department, what were the difficulties encountered in extending the consultants' work time? The four-page document given to the consultants by the Health Service Executive on behalf of the Minister did not mention extending the consultants' working day. I thought such an extension would have been an integral part of both the European working time directive and the Minister's plan, namely, the Hanly report. Why does this aspect not feature in the renegotiation of the consultants' contract? Has the Department more or less rejected the idea of extending the working day?

I understand what the Minister says about the negotiations with consultants not happening, but there is nothing coming from the Department indicating that she has any great interest in it either. What background documents does she have? What difficulties does she think she will encounter, apart from those with the consultants? The extension of the consultants' working day would make outpatients clinics more available, but that idea seems to have fallen off the radar.

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