I was recently at a sports event at which I noticed a young man performing very poorly. I asked his coach the question, "What is going wrong with young Johnny?," to which he replied the shift work was killing him. I asked him what he meant by "shift work" and he said that Johnny was a doctor. I thought it would be appropriate for me to highlight the plight of junior doctors working in the most difficult conditions owing to cutbacks. At a time when the Irish Medical Organisation is about to pay out on a pension deal worth in excess of €9 million to its CEO, junior doctors are routinely asked to work 60 hours a week and some shifts lasting up to 36 hours. They are finding it very difficult to retrieve their overtime pay. An EU directive in 2004 dictated that EU workers should not work more than 48 hours a week. Obviously, this instruction is not heeded in Ireland. Some surgical doctors are required to work from a Saturday morning through to the Monday evening - a 60 hour shift. Surely this cannot be safe. It is only a matter of time before an exhausted junior doctor makes a major mistake, perhaps resulting in the loss of a life. Junior doctors are normally allocated a break, but some of them do not even have enough time to eat or drink. At times they have to choose between eating or going to the bathroom.

One of the reasons for the shortage of staff is that most of our graduates emigrate to countries where they find better work conditions. That is a disgrace when one considers the investment the taxpayer has made.

Is the Senator calling for a debate on this issue?

I call on the Minister for Health to indicate if there are plans to examine this entire area in the near future with a view to improving working conditions and preventing these junior doctors emigrating.