James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)

I thank the Minister for her response. I wonder why interns were excluded for comparative purposes. They are NCHDs and would clearly impact on the ratios considerably.

It is important to point out that emergency pediatric and obstetrics maternity and surgical services across the country are likely to be curtailed as a result of the critical shortage of junior hospital doctors. An anaesthetist consultant in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital has written a letter to the press outlining the difficulties being faced there with some nine posts in the junior ranks being vacant. This will make the delivery of a service difficult. In the context of events at Navan hospital, this will mean a serious diminution.

Apart from the intern issue, what services will be curtailed or reconfigured due to the forecasted shortages, what action has been taken by the Department and the HSE to fill the vacancies and does the Minister accept that the staffing crisis means hospitals will become increasingly dependent on locums, a matter to which she has alluded? An over-reliance on locums will lead to an increase in adverse incidents as occurred previously, particularly in the north east.

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