Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Our thoughts are with all of those affected by the terrible conflict in Ukraine. The Department of Health, the Medical Council and NMBI will continue to support Ukrainian health professionals forced to flee their homeland as they arrive in Ireland and seek to re-establish their lives and integrate into our community. As Deputies will appreciate, our health regulatory bodies have a duty to protect patients by ensuring that all health professionals seeking registration meet the required training standards and are safe to practice. Depending on where doctors qualified and the type of qualifications they hold, some doctors arriving into Ireland from Ukraine may be required to take a pre-registration exam and an English language exam. This exam looks at a number of areas, including communication skills and clinical skills. It is an important step to ensure patient safety.

However, we will continue to streamline the registration process and expedite Ukrainian applications to the greatest extent possible, working closely with our EU colleagues to share best practice and utilise all database electronic verification tools available to minimise formal document requirements, mindful of the fact that these professionals have been forced to flee their homeland and may not be in possession of formal evidence of their qualifications. Where gaps are identified in the training received by Ukrainian professionals, we will continue to link in with the HSE and training bodies to seek to ensure that training opportunities are available to allow those professionals to bring their skills up to the necessary level and work in the Irish system.

The Deputy's idea about a single point of contact, be it on a HSE portal, would be most useful. It would be worthwhile for the Minister and the HSE to consider it, so that people would have a single person they could go to and discuss the whole process they need to go through to get into the Irish system.

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