The High Court has ordered limited discovery in a judicial review challenge to Ireland’s specialist-doctor training and certification regime, directing the applicant to disclose records covering defined periods and applications. It also awarded the College of Anaesthesiologists of Ireland its costs of a separate motion for further and better particulars.
Mr Justice Garrett Simons delivered the ruling on two procedural motions in proceedings brought by Ahmed Abdelaatti against the College, the Medical Council, the Minister for Health, Ireland and the Attorney General. The underlying challenge remains unresolved.
Abdelaatti is on the specialist register and holds a Certificate of Specialist Doctor. He argues that he should receive a Certificate of Satisfactory Completion of Specialist Training in Anaesthesiology, saying he undertook six years of specialist training under the College’s and Medical Council’s supervision and guidance. The respondents deny that the College can award that certificate to someone who did not complete its approved Specialist Anaesthesiology Training Programme. They say the two certificates serve different purposes.
The judge said the case may require the court at trial to resolve factual disputes about whether Abdelaatti’s self-guided training was equivalent to training under the approved programme. He noted that the substantive judicial review had previously been directed to proceed by plenary hearing. The discovery ruling does not decide the certification dispute.
The court ordered discovery of hospital training records for the period February 2016 to July 2022, the application and accompanying documents Abdelaatti submitted to the Medical Council in December 2021 for entry on the specialist register, and specified Revenue employment summaries and contracts with Irish hospitals. The parties were asked to agree the wording of the order. The employment-record category is limited to five years, but the judgment leaves its starting date as “[DATE]”.
The judge declined to order broader disclosure of all efforts to enter the specialist register, noting that the papers identified no other application. He also said the training-record category should be narrowed to the period Abdelaatti relied on for his specialist-register application.
On costs of the discovery motion, the judge gave a provisional view that each party should bear its own costs, describing the result as a draw because the College obtained narrower categories than it initially sought. Either side may make oral submissions on costs at the next listing.
For the separate particulars motion, the judge found that the College’s offer not to pursue costs depended on agreement over the discovery motion, which was not reached. He ordered that the College receive its costs because its motion achieved the delivery of further and better particulars. The proceedings were listed for further case management on 1 May 2025.