The Deputy will be aware that trainee doctors, along with several other groups, were excluded from the provisions of the original Working Time Directive adopted by the EU in 1993. Following adoption of the 1993 directive, the European Commission embarked on a consultative exercise with the sectors concerned and the member states on how a broadly similar level of protection to that provided by the 1993 directive, could be afforded to the excluded groups while taking account of the specific requirements of the industries and services concerned. In the case of hospitals this involved attempting to balance the need for reasonable working hours for doctors while recognising the 24 hour nature of hospital services and the need to guarantee continuity of care for patients. In Ireland's case we needed a framework which would allow us to move from our present position of having a maximum working week of 65 hours for junior doctors to the 48 hours contained in the 1993 directive. My Department has been concerned to achieve this in a manner which would not endanger patients and which would not throw the entire medical workforce career structure into chaos by recruiting large numbers of trainee doctors for whom there would be no reasonable prospect of securing career posts. The Deputy will be aware that the future structure of the hospital medical staffing is already being looked at by the medical manpower forum.
The European Commission published its proposals for an amending directive to the 1993 directive in November 1998. The Commission's proposals have been the subject of discussion in a social questions working group under the aegis of the Labour and Social Affairs Council. A significant number of the member states felt that the Commissions' proposals were impractical and could not be implemented in the timescale proposed. The German Presidency then had to work on compromise proposals which might be acceptable to a majority of the member states. These proposals involved a total transition period of 12 years with a gradual reduction in maximum weekly working hours to 48 hours over the period. The United Kingdom proposed a 13 year transition period to reach the objective. In the interests of securing unanimity at the Council this proposal was accepted.