Mary Henry (Independent)

I welcome the Minister of State. When the Medical Practitioners (Amendment) Bill 2002 was brought before the Houses of the Oireachtas in April last year, it was stated in the explanatory memorandum that the legislation was being brought forward as a matter of urgency. More than one year later, it has still not been implemented. I agreed at the time that it was needed as a matter of urgency because all over the country we were depending on non-EU doctors who had come here supposedly for training but were in fact holding the health service together.