Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Go raibh maith agat agus gabhaim buíochas leis an Taoiseach as ucht a chuid freagraí. I want to raise with the Taoiseach the very serious issue of non-specialist doctors operating as consultants, even though they are not on the Medical Council's specialist register. It was reported by Susan Mitchell in The Sunday Business Postat the weekend that 650 of the 4,373 medical consultants in the State are not on the specialist register. Those are 2015 figures. Those figures show that one in seven consultants employed in private and public hospitals in the State have not completed their specialist training. I find that very worrying from a patient safety perspective and from a medical-legal perspective. I ask the Taoiseach for an explanation of this. What action does he and the Minister, Deputy Simon Harris, intend to take to address this?

The other issue I wish to raise with the Taoiseach is the trolley crisis. In that respect, 2018 has been shocking to say the least. A month ago there was a record 714 patients on trolleys. We cannot stand by and pretend that is normal. That should not be normalised. Since the start of the year there have been two significant developments to address the trolley crisis, the publication of the bed capacity review and the passing of a Sinn Féin motion proposing solutions to this crisis and yet we have had no action to support these matters. We need the implementation of the recommendations of the bed capacity review in tandem with the Sláintecare report. When will the Taoiseach honour both of those?

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