Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

On the so-called "HIQA Nine", the hospitals about which there has been some concern relating to the potential for medical supervision of recruitments, what is the position with individual hospital sites? The Minister did not have the detail in his reply and if he does not have the information immediately to hand could he furnish it to this Deputy with an update on the situation?

The Minister does not want to have to go through this again and we do not want to look at such a slovenly method of recruitment in such a key and important area of public service provision. On the alternatives that must be pursued in terms of recruitment, what plans are being devised by the Minister to ensure the recruitment process is up to the standard we would expect in 2011?

Yesterday in The Irish Times it was reported that doctors who had resigned their posts in India and Pakistan and made arrangements to travel here were told to stay put, such was the delay in the processing programme. Will the Minister comment on that? I am sure he has seen the report. I wonder if that is the case. Is the Minister aware that some doctors who have travelled here and have been in this country for some weeks have returned home without even being assessed, such was the delay in the process? That is what we are reading in the newspapers. I would like to know what the Minister understands to be the factual position.

The HSE has said the registration process is complex. We understand that, but it also indicates that the Medical Council amended the required HSE documentation in late August, some two to three weeks ago. That was damn late in the process and just prior to our return to the Oireachtas. Surely, going back to the passage of the facilitating legislation, all of that should have been in place, regularised and accepted long before that point in time? What upset has that caused? Does the Minister have any concerns on the Medical Council's position in regard to all of this?

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