They are here because we need them, yet many of the foreign doctors who underpin Ireland's health service say they are treated "like criminals".
A group of Kilkenny-based doctors who come from outside the EU say Ireland is a welcoming and friendly place to live, but feel that the policy of the State and some financial institutions is to treat them as second-class members of society.
Their complaints are backed by an Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) official who claims the State - and the south-east in particular - faces an acute shortage of doctors in the immediate future if attitudes to non-EU medics do not change.
Mr Conal Devine, the IMO's director of industrial relations, says at least 75 per cent of junior hospital doctors working in the south-east are from outside the EU, with the figure in some hospitals as high as 85 per cent.
Six such doctors and a consultant told The Irish Times of their disillusionment on a number of fronts. The seven, all based at St Luke's Hospital in Kilkenny, directed most of their anger at the Department of Justice and Law Reform.
They ask why they must apply for re-entry visas to be allowed back into the State when they go abroad, and claim they are singled out for questioning by immigration officers because of their colour. Six of the seven are Indian; one is from Pakistan.
Major obstacles are placed in the way of family members wishing to stay with them or even visit. Dr George Philip says that when his wife applied to join him, the Irish authorities "asked her why she wanted to live with her husband . . . and this is a society that's supposed to promote family values".
Family members hoping to come for holidays - even those living in Britain - have been told they must take out private health insurance.
Dr Philip, who has been in Ireland for 51/2 years and has two Irish-born children, finishes his contract at St Luke's on December 31st. In Britain he would have two further months to tidy up his affairs, but under Irish law non-EU doctors are required to leave the State the day they finish work here.
"I asked an official on the phone how I could sort out my tax returns and so on, and I was told it wasn't my problem, that someone else could do it," he said.
A spokesman at the Department of Justice said it was "flexible" in all such cases, and there was no question of people being forced out of the State on their last day at work.
But Dr Philip has an additional problem. He is due to sit a Royal College of Physicians exam in May: if he leaves Ireland before then even for a family emergency, he may be refused re-entry.
The consultant, who declined to be named, saying he feared going public would result in even worse treatment by the authorities, had to forgo a job opportunity in the US because he was refused an Irish re-entry visa.
He had received a US visa without difficulty, but the authorities here refused to recognise additional pages inserted into his passport - which had run out of space for official stamps - by the Indian embassy and insisted he get a new passport. The resultant delay caused him to miss the job interview. The doctors claim this is typical of what appear to be arbitrary decisions made by officials.
To say they were treated like dirt was too dignified a way to put it, said the consultant, whose anger throughout the interview was palpable. "We are treated as if we are criminals."
What angers the doctors most, however, is the manner in which they are dealt with by Department of Foreign Affairs officials who handle re-entry visa applications under sanction from the Department of Justice.
They say Irish civil servants could learn from the British embassy, whose staff have a "far better" attitude. "They're courteous, they address you as `doctor', they tell you what documents you need; if you haven't got one they say `don't worry, put it in the post'," said the consultant.
In contrast, they claim Irish officials are high-handed and unhelpful if all the required documents are not immediately produced. A Department of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman expressed surprise at this claim.
She said that because of the large numbers applying, staff had to deal with applicants as speedily and effectively - but also as politely - as possible.
The Department of Justice also defended its procedures, which were streamlined for non-EU doctors in October following negotiations with the IMO.
Mr Devine agreed that the Department had taken steps to address the difficulties. There was now a single-status visa for foreign doctors which allowed for multiple re-entry to the State without the need for a separate application before each trip.
"The number of queries and complaints we've had has fallen dramatically since then . . . In fairness to the Department of Justice they got the message and were very proactive at the end of the day."
The Kilkenny doctors, however, are not impressed by the initiative. They say one must surrender one's passport for two weeks for a multiple entry visa application to be processed, and some doctors applying have not been in a position to wait that long.
Applying for single-entry visas, as the doctors have had no choice but to do for the past several years, has involved travelling to Dublin during half-days off, waiting in a queue for up to two hours, and presenting documents including a letter from their hospital authorities, passport, bank statement, Medical Council registration, Garda registration book and two passport photographs, then hoping there would be no last minute hitches or new regulations requiring the whole procedure to be repeated.
For the consultant, whose wife lives and works in Britain, this has been a monthly chore.
The Indian doctors, who pay £15 for a single-entry visa, say for them price is not the issue. But that is not the case for their young Pakistani colleague who must choose between paying £80 for a single visa or £200 for multiple entry.
Mr Devine said the benefits of the new regime may not have "percolated through" the entire system yet, but the Kilkenny doctors ask why they are required to have a re-entry visa at all, even a multiple one. They say there is no such requirement on their colleagues in Britain. "This is the only country where people who pay taxes and work are asked to get re-entry visas," said Dr Philip.
But the doctors and the IMO are in full agreement on every other issue, including the difficulty in getting visas for family members. Mr Devine said this is a "very traumatic" problem for some members adding that the IMO had intervened in a number of individual cases.
The doctors' treatment by some financial institutions is another bugbear. Dr Philip said he was one of eight doctors in Kilkenny who were refused credit cards by the Bank of Ireland. He did get a card on his third attempt but believes this was more because he had treated the relative of a bank official than anything else.
"The other seven went to other banks and got cards without difficulty. Why is it just this particular bank?" he asked.
A Bank of Ireland spokesman said there were strict criteria governing credit-card applications, including permanent residency and employment. "Nationality has nothing to do with it. The bank has issued 400,000-plus credit cards, and many of them are in the hands of people who are not Irish."
He said if other banks were prepared to issue cards to people turned away by the Bank of Ireland, it might be because their criteria were not as strict.
Mr Devine, without referring to any particular enterprise, said some financial institutions had discriminated against non-EU doctors seeking credit cards or loans. This was despite the fact that such doctors stayed here for an average of five years and were high earners.
But perhaps the most serious issue of all is the red tape facing doctors from abroad who want to work here. Mr Devine said foreign doctors face an "inordinate bureaucratic obstacle course".
Of particular concern is the introduction this year by the Medical Council of an exam for doctors from outside the EU, including an English-language element. Mr Devine said this has brought a reduction in the number of doctors applying to come here, from 200 every six months to "a handful, about 15 to 20".
He believes this could lead to a serious shortage of doctors in Irish hospitals in the short term, possibly as early as July next year.
One doctor who has already sat the exam, Dr Sandiya Tirupati, criticised the bureaucracy surrounding it. Before she was allowed to sit the exam the Medical Council insisted on production of a certificate of good standing from her home country, India.
This is a standard requirement for doctors working abroad. However, by the time the exam was held the six-month certificate had expired. She passed the exam, but before she could register the council insisted she go through the complicated procedure - from this distance - of getting another certificate of good standing from home.
In addition to such bureaucratic requirements, doctors must pay a £400 fee to sit the exam, on top of the £400 registration fee. A spokesman for the Medical Council could not be contacted for comment.
Mr Devine warns that Ireland needs its non-EU doctors and is competing with other countries for their services. "It's in everybody's interests that we make it as attractive as possible for them to come here."
The Kilkenny doctors who spoke to The Irish Times stressed that Kilkenny is an attractive place: their colleagues and consultants support them and, says Dr Meera Varghese, "the people are very nice".
