Liam Twomey (Wexford, Fine Gael)

This report was published in June 2003, almost three years ago. The former Minister, Deputy Martin, wrote the foreword which stated: "the Task Force has also concluded that a consultant-provided service is the only viable means of providing safe high quality patient care while reducing the working hours of NCHDs". If we are to replace junior doctors with consultants, we will need a new consultants' contract which deals with the extended working day and issues around who will be on duty at night and at weekends. There was nothing in the Tánaiste's reply which gave us any indication where this consultants' contract is going. Getting rid of category two consultants is only a red herring; it will not make a fundamental difference. Locating new private hospitals in the grounds of public hospitals will not change this fundamental problem. Who will be on duty at night and at weekends when the EU working time directive is implemented? That is what the Hanly report is all about.

There should have been a new consultants' contract by now which would provide for an extended working day and cover issues around on-call and working at night and at weekends. The Tánaiste has given no indication that we have moved on this issue in the past three years. We are in exactly the same position in which we were when all these discussions started. That is not good enough. Nothing which has been said on this issue will make the crisis in the health service better. We need to see a change to the consultants' contract, a reduction in the number of non-consultant hospital doctors and more consultants doing the job about which we are talking. While the Hanly report has very much been taken up with the closure of smaller hospitals, this fundamental issue covers every hospital in the country, the largest and the smallest.

See this speech in context