Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I do not have much to add other than to answer the Deputy’s question about the shortage of anaesthetists or anaesthesiologists. There are not enough of them around the world. There are shortages in many jurisdictions. If there are any unemployed ones I have never met them. They take a long time to train, six years in medical school and another five or six years of higher training. Health services around the world are competing for senior doctors. Last week, the HSE, the Department and the Irish Medical Organisation, concluded an agreement on revised salary scales for new entry consultants to make it more attractive for them to take up posts in Ireland, to make sure that the salaries are competitive with those in Australia and England. I hope that will result in more applications for the 200 or so vacant consultant posts in our health service. There are those who believe we should have income equality to the extreme, that nobody should be paid over €100,000 or should pay 60% or 70% tax on income over €100,000. The effect of that in Ireland would be to have virtually no hospital consultants, and patients would suffer and die.

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