Barry Ward (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Bill being presented by Senators Doherty and Seery Kearney and the family of Stephen Smith, if I can put it in those terms. It is a Bill that makes perfect sense. It is an unfortunate stain that this has not been the situation up to now. I know we would all welcome it.

I will raise the issue of non-consultant hospital doctors. We have approximately 12,000 doctors working in hospitals, about 8,000 of whom are non-consultant doctors. Up to 5,000 of these are in formal training contracts whereby they will spend about a quarter of their careers gleaning the skills and experience needed to operate as consultants, healing, looking after and curing us. We know we have a retention problem. It is difficult for health workers, whether doctors or other health workers, and retaining them is a major problem. I was dismayed to see an advertisement from the state of Victoria in Dublin last night calling on nurses and other healthcare workers to go to Melbourne and place like that in Victoria to work. We cannot afford to lose those people.

Non-consultant hospital doctors will spend a lot of their formal training period travelling around Ireland, going to hospitals in Dublin, Letterkenny, Castlebar and Cork. People in the later stages of their careers may well have families, children and partners who may be uprooted as a result of these travels or who may not move with them, with these doctors ending up working away from home. At the moment, if they do that, they are paying a second set of rents, utilities and other expenses that would have been consolidated into one if they were to be left at home. The State and the HSE provide no assistance with these additional costs they are obliged to take on. There is a proposal from the Irish Medical Organisation which makes perfect sense. It is to simply make those extra expenses, including rent and utilities, tax-deductible for people who can prove they have left a family scenario. Approximately 500 doctors are affected by this each year. It would cost an average of €6 million to the Exchequer but it would be a powerful step in recognising their roles and the need to retain them and would make it easier for them to do their training and their work.