Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

To be helpful, the Deputy is entirely correct. The amendment introduced on Committee Stage was to facilitate the transfer of a small number of consultants, estimated to be about 30 or 40, from the Medical Council's general division to its specialist division. These are consultants who were correctly appointed to their posts prior to the introduction by the HSE in 2008 of a requirement that consultants be registered in the specialist divisions. The consultants in question did not take advantage, for a number of reasons, of the five-year period during which they could have applied for transfer under the Medical Practitioners Act 2007. On Committee Stage, Members were agreeable to this change but they were concerned that the language used in the amendment was overly broad and could be problematic in terms of access by consultants outside of the intended cohort. The revised text is now being introduced to address those concerns.

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