Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I wish to raise an issue I raised yesterday on the present difficulty in filling consultant vacancies. It appears there is now a difficulty in filling general practitioner trainee vacancies. We need to have a debate on the cost of education. The cost of medical education here is approximately €90 million per annum, yet about 60% of that investment is gone out of the country within 12 months of people graduating from college. I note this morning that Ireland is one of the largest contributors to the United Kingdom in providing trained general practitioners. In the past four years, we have provided 1,049 trained general practitioners to the English health system which is at a cost to the Irish taxpayer. It is great that people are able to get jobs and that they have been provided with superb training here, but it is time we looked at the whole cost of education in this area, given that we cannot fill medical positions here, even though we are providing the education and the follow-up training. It is time we had a serious debate on the cost issues and how we are to move forward in the next ten to 20 years. I ask the Leader to provide time for a debate in this area.