I thank my colleague, Deputy Rice, for all the work he has done on this motion. Is minic a thagann Airí isteach anseo agus léann siad ráiteas atá ullmhaithe, gan mórán ionchuir ón Aire féin. Ar chúis éigin, shíl mé go mbeadh an tAire Stáit, an Teachta O’Donnell, difriúil ach bhí mé mícheart. It is welcome that the Government is not opposing the motion. There are some very good ideas and suggestions in this motion that the Minister of State did not even address in his contribution. It is disappointing that he did not address them. I want to read to the Minister of State from the survey that was carried out by Deputy Rice. It sums up a huge number of the problems in terms of the lack of capacity, solutions for which are in our motion and which urgently need to be addressed. One respondent said they filled out the survey for their 73-year-old mother who is suffering with chronic illness, such as heart failure and dementia. Two weeks ago, the respondent said, they found her crawling out of her room on her hands and knees because she had fallen and could not get herself up. When the respondent rang the mother's GP to ask for an appointment to get her referred to age-related care for physiotherapy and walking-aid assessment, the appointment given was for 18 March. The respondent rang on 13 February and the appointment given was for 18 March. The respondent's mother was recently discharged from her heart failure unit to GP care. If she has a future heart failure episode, she is meant to wait for five weeks for GP assessment to refer her back in. The respondent said they will end up back in the accident and emergency department to wait on a trolley or bed for another 56 hours. That is the reality facing people in Ireland because of the chronic lack of investment to improve GP capacity and primary care. There are a number of solutions in the motion that the Minister of State did not address. One of the key measures put forward is the introduction of a salaried GP model so that GPs are directly employed by the HSE. This would remove the burdens of effectively running a small business. The motion calls on the Government to ensure proper cover in rural communities, on offshore islands and in areas of deprivation. It suggests the creation of a DEIS-like scheme for GPs to increase capacity. It suggests the expansion of locum cover supports and calls for investment in a national GP clinical lead role. It suggests investment in a primary healthcare equity working group and to establish same, with representation from front-line services and patients in deprived areas, similar to the successful Scottish model. It calls for the acceleration of the delivery of HSE-built primary care centres. The Minister of State did reference that part of the motion but did not go into any detail about what extra is being done in that regard. The motion also calls for the development of a national strategy to attract, support and retain future GPs. It calls for students to get increased exposure to general practice in medical schools. It calls for accelerated implementation of the 2023 report of the Irish College of General Practitioners entitled "Medical Student to General Practitioner — An Urgent Call to Action". It calls for the provision of an additional 100 GP training places. Those are urgently needed. It calls for the alignment of the terms and conditions for general practice nurses with those of their HSE colleagues. It calls for an increase in the annual public health nurse training capacity from 160 places to 240 places. Those are the concrete and detailed proposals we have put forward. The Government is not opposing them but the Minister of State has not told us in concrete terms what it is going to do to implement them.

Sentiment score: 0.09