Willie O'Dea (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)

Deputy Deenihan is correct that the establishment is 46 but the number of doctors employed in the Army at present is 24. That is not to say the Army is only getting half the medical attention it requires. The lacuna is made up by employing private medical practitioners. Successive Ministers have made valiant efforts over the years to ensure the medical corps reaches its establishment level. Unfortunately, our efforts have not met with success, which is why we decided to bring in consultants to advise us on how to proceed. We have taken various measures such as, for example, renegotiating the salaries of Army doctors, recruitment campaigns and so forth but, to date, those efforts have not borne the requisite fruit.

In response to Deputy Deenihan's query about a penalty clause, the answer is "No"; there is no penalty clause. Rather than discuss questions of fault I prefer to get the matter right. The consultants were initially brought in last July. As part of the process they had to consult a number of key stakeholders. They found it difficult to do that during the holiday period of July and August so there was a delay. They presented an initial report to the Department on 15 December last. The material in that report was not directly released to the representative organisations but the basis on which the report was arrived at and some of its conclusions and recommendations were discussed with them. Everybody decided, including the Department and the representative organisations, that the consultants would have to work again on the matter on the basis that a number of items were not referred to and there was a problem with the clarity of some of the recommendations and with the clarity of the language. We are a little behind schedule but it is very important that we get this right.

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