Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

Locums have always made up a fundamental part of the health service. That has been the case for decades and I am sure the system will continue to operate on that basis. It is a crucial part of providing the services for holidays and for stand-in for the period it takes to employ a consultant. In the general scheme of things, when a consultant appointment comes up many of the consultants who seek posts here are Irish doctors who have been senior registrars here and have gone to hospitals in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia or the United States. There is quite a gap between a vacancy and an appointment. That has always been the case and I do not see how this can be done in a better way.

From where I am looking at the figures, and not being a medical expert, the difficulty with a number of these posts is that it is not attractive for locums to take up these posts, especially in the small centres. In most of these instances very few people applied for the posts. I believe there was difficulty getting somebody to take up the post in Portlaoise, but that is not unusual either. In the main centres these posts are seen as being enormously attractive.

As I understand it, there was contact with the Health Information and Quality Authority. It followed up and found out where the individuals had gone. In a number of these cases that we have looked at recently there was medical contact and contact between the HSE and Galway and Cork. In some cases the consultants might have gone further afield also. If memory serves me, one of the briefings I received stated that when the consultant went out of the country the authority endeavoured to contact the authorities in that country — I do not know if this was successful in that. The procedures are in place——

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