Liam Twomey (Wexford, Fine Gael)

I move amendment No. 70:

In page 80, to delete lines 29 and 30 and substitute the following:

"94.—(1) The Health Service Executive and the registered medical practitioner shall ensure that practitioner's professional competence is maintained on an ongoing basis.".

The problem here is resourcing the competence assurance. The Minister has stated she has given a commitment that the resourcing of the competence assurance will be looked after by the HSE, but it is not guaranteed that the HSE will take full responsibility for resourcing. It is quite possible that registered medical practitioners could also see their fee for registration with the Medical Council increase dramatically to pay for the cost of this. As the Minister will be aware, medical registration is already a significant cost and this could add considerably to it. She has not made quite clear for how much resources the HSE would be responsible. Will the Department be responsible for the full costs of competence assurance?

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