Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)

With regard to the rules being set by the Medical Council under section 8 to which Senator Burke referred, it is correct that the Medical Council sets the rules but they are then referred to the Minister and it is open to the Minister to amend them, following which they are set down by way of statutory order. With regard to the two-year aggregate, it is possible that a person who may have to leave post after two or three months can return. It is an aggregate limit. I draw the Senator's attention to the fact that the posts are specialty specific. The person would have to return to a post in the same specialty, and this would need to be addressed in any arrangement. With regard to section 6 and dealing with an emergency, the description of a post will be set by the employer in this regard.

With regard to reforms, the fact there is a five or six year lead-in to full universal health insurance, UHI, does not preclude action being taken to achieve better value for money from the hospitals. In the 1990s when Deputy Howlin was Minister for Health, he introduced a tendering system for hip operations. He went to the market to see what was the best price he could get for batches of hip operations. There is much to be said for taking this type of approach. We are not precluded from doing this in the long-term planning for UHI. It does not mean that all other initiatives need to stop.