Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

I can arrange that. I will also send a copy to Deputy Gormley, in case he thinks I have some reason not to share the information with him. The scheme will be expensive but the doctors made a compelling case to me that expecting it to be financed from registration fees would greatly delay its implementation. We are therefore going to make public moneys available from the time of enactment of this Bill towards the cost of the scheme.

With regard to the education and training elements of this Bill, medical education in Ireland is changing. Several Deputies referred to the high number of points needed to enroll as a medical student. The points required will drop to 460 and we will take 60 graduate entries from this academic year. We increased the undergraduate places for the academic year beginning 2006 by 70 and we will increase the numbers of Irish and EU students from 325 to 725. That will clearly be expensive, requiring, for example, the appointment this year of an additional 17 academic clinicians, and we will have to provide the resources at third level to accommodate the huge expansion in the provision of medical education. We also have to find ways of retaining those who graduate from the Irish education system because, while it is good for people to go abroad for part of their training, I would like to think the Irish health care system can attract them back.

The legislation also makes provision for foreigners who come to work in Ireland and remain on the temporary register for considerable periods of time. The present process for allowing highly qualified people from the US and elsewhere to become specialists in this jurisdiction is very cumbersome. I note that today's news led on this provision, along with the refugee issue, which is being addressed on humanitarian grounds. It will be a matter for the Medical Council to assess the quality of refugee applicants and to assure itself they have the appropriate qualifications. It would be awful to think that a refugee with qualifications in medicine was not able to apply his or her training in the Irish health care system.

While many of the issues raised today are more appropriate to Committee Stage, I wish to speak about whistleblowing. The Bill provides that doctors who give evidence to inquiries or fitness to practise tribunals against colleagues are protected from being sued. A number of doctors have informed me that it is difficult for them under current legislation to speak their mind because they fear litigation. An amendment will be proposed on Committee Stage of the Health Information and Quality Authority Bill to protect all employees from victimisation in their places of employment and from being sued when they make complaints, provided they are not vexatious. That important provision will cover all health care settings. However, I believe the lack of such provisions at present is not the reason why people do not make complaints. Many complainants prefer anonymity to being identified even where they are not victimised.

Deputies raised a range of issues, from the nurses' strike to hospitals in the north east. This is not the forum to address such issues because the most fundamental change brought by the Bill is ensuring that we have the highest possible standards of patient safety and that competence assurance is at the heart of the regulation of medical practitioners. The provisions for a lay majority and protection for those who make complaints from being sued are important but it is most reassuring from a public and patient safety perspective that we will for the first time have a system for ensuring that doctors on the register are competent to practise. I commend this Bill to the House and look forward to Committee Stage.

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