Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for taking time out of his busy schedule to deal with this matter. Over the past number of months, I have come across a number of cases of people working in our health service, in some cases for quite a period of time, who have applied or had members of their families apply for visas to come to Ireland. Recently I dealt with a case where the person is now working in Ireland and has a full-time job here as a doctor but had to wait quite a long period of time before his spouse could get a visa to come here. The second case was of a family where one member is on the specialist register for paediatrics, which is not an easy position to get. It is an area she wants to specialise in. Her husband has been in permanent employment as a doctor in the HSE for the past ten years. They had a difficulty where her father had applied for a visa through the embassy in Mumbai and it took 14 months for the application to be considered. There was clear evidence he had sufficient financial support and would not be reliant on the State but after 14 months the application was refused. This is a couple with a young family. I am a bit concerned that quite a number of our hospitals outside the main centres of Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford are finding it quite difficult to get medical doctors and nurses to take up positions. When they come here they are finding there are quite a number of hurdles they have to jump to get members of their immediate family into the country. We have a significant shortage of nurses and doctors. In some of our smaller hospitals up to 70% to 80% of doctors are from non-EU countries. The retention of doctors here is another challenge we have to face. It is an immediate challenge. There should be a process put in place to deal with visa applications where a member of the family is working here in a medical capacity either as a doctor or nurse. I am asking that the present procedure be reviewed.