The President of the Irish Medical Council has said the tenuous position of foreign medics working here must be ended.
Dr John Hillery said their status is one of the many issues raised by this week's report into the practice of removing women's wombs at the Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda.
He said non-EU doctors working here relied on references from consultants in order to be kept on as trainees and that, he said, seems to have contributed to the fact that practices at the hospital were not questioned by junior staff.