Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

The Deputy is correct. The idea is to provide a 24-hour, seven-day service delivered, rather than led, by the consultants. There are 4,000 non-consultant hospital doctors and 2,000 consultants working in this country and we need to change that ratio around if we are to have consultant delivered services. The commitment in the current contract is for 39 hours to public service work and we want to change that. We want to introduce a new contract for full-time public consultants so that consultants are not incentivised to see one patient over another and that all patients who enter a public hospital will be seen by a consultant who is salaried to see them. As part of any new contract of employment, we want to have consultants employed on a 24-hour, seven-day basis. These issues must be agreed in the negotiations. It is not correct to say that we are trying to have an 8 a.m to 5 p.m. day for consultants. Consultants will be expected to work evenings, nights and weekends. Perhaps that could be excluded for older consultants, but it would be the norm for younger consultants and part of their contract of employment.

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