Willie O'Dea (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)

Naturally, I do not accept the Deputy's contention that there is no urgency. I have informed the Department and the Defence Forces that I want progress in this area as a matter of urgency. As the Deputy recognises, it involves a revolutionary change in the provision of medical services within the Army. It is a sea change; we are turning the whole system, which is no longer adequate, on its head. This will take time and we need to bring people with us, which is one of our major problems. We must sit down and talk to people, whether they are from the representative associations, the general Army staff, or the medical corps. One of the recommendations of the group was that we set up an implementation strategy, which we have done in the form of the steering group and the progress group. The latter has done quite a lot of preliminary work and hopes to report back to the steering group within the next two or three weeks.

As I see this evolving, there are a number of specific tasks that need to be done - what they call in departmental jargon "work packages". I am hoping most of those will be done within the next 12 months. Some can be done immediately, while others will require longer consultation. Once those specific tasks have been done and practical matters attended to, the rest will fall into place. I am considering a timeframe of 12 to 18 months for implementation, which is short in view of the depth and width of the report.

The Deputy asked about difficulties with recruitment. I accept what he said about the report's conclusions about the current system, but let me remind the House that under the present system, when it is unable to provide the service for which it has been designed, we outsource the rest of the work. People are not left without medical attention, whether at home or abroad. That is an important point.

If we can put in place the new system as recommended by the consultants, there should be no problem with recruitment because we will not need to recruit many more. We will be able to reduce the establishment of the medical corps, which is at present 47, although there are only 24 working there. In addition, it will be a more rewarding and challenging career - one in which medics are practising medicine rather than spending all their time on administration. They will also get recognition for the work they have done in the medical service of the Defence Forces. However, we are just starting to implement the report, so it would be unrealistic to expect a flood of recruits. I have no doubt that when the report is fully implemented it will be much easier to recruit.

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