Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Last month, the Minister for Health, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, who is in the Chamber, came to Carlow and saw the pressure on out-of-hours services and the limited use of a perfectly good X-ray facility at St. Dympna's Hospital.

The Caredoc team have met me several times on the matter of securing doctors from abroad to assist in tackling the significant workload. The atypical working scheme, AWS, visa was taking 30 working days to be issued while entry visas normally took 20 working days more, but the AWS permit only allows people to work in Ireland for 90 days. They must then leave the State and reapply. Entry visas are now taking up to eight weeks to be authorised, which is having a major impact.

We need doctors to come and work in Ireland quickly, but of more importance is the need for an injury clinic in Carlow that makes use of the good facilities already in place and allows for the service's expansion so that it properly serves the people of Carlow, where there is significant demand.

During the Minister's trip, he also visited our ambulance base. We asked for a temporary modular build there until the new build was completed. Will he fill me in on that?

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