Vol. 510 No. 3
251 Mr. Allen asked the Minister for Health and Children the steps, if any, he proposes to take in view of the fact that only 19 per cent of full-time consultant posts are held by women, in spite of the fact that since the early 1990's more than half the graduates in medicine have been women and their representation in temporary consultant posts is very high. [22256/99]
The imbalance between the number of male and female consultants has been a cause for concern for some time. It is a major item on the work programme of the forum on medical manpower. A considerable amount of work has been undertaken with young female doctors with a view to identifying the factors which inhibit their progression to the senior levels of hospital medicine. The interim report of the forum, which is nearing completion, will contain a number of proposals to address this problem.
