There was a time when every town and village had a family doctor. They were rooted in the community and known to everybody across generations. Today, that model is under real strain in urban areas but particularly in rural Ireland. GPs are the anchor of our health system. They are the gateway into our health system in most cases. They provide long-term, continuous care from cradle to grave, yet successive governments have failed to plan properly for primary care. In 2001, the Future Together report warned about shortages in GP numbers and practice-based staff. Twenty-five years later, we are still playing catch-up. The rate of GPs per head has barely improved in that time and is now moving in the wrong direction. The number of practising GPs fell from 4,583 in 2019 to 4,420 in 2022. One in four GPs is aged over 60, so there is another crisis coming. Only one in five practices is open to new public patients. In County Waterford, the impact is really clear. In Dungarvan, people struggle to secure timely appointments. In Portlaw, access is restricted during the week and there is no full-time availability. The issue in Lismore with the primary care centre that is now delayed has been mentioned. It is back to the drawing board and the starting blocks, through no fault of the people of Lismore or anybody practising medicine. The Government needs to get to grips with that and expedite that process. Across villages and country areas, older people and people with disabilities are travelling well beyond their own communities for routine care. That is creating an additional burden and barrier. People in Dungarvan, for example, have to travel a couple of towns away. It is simply not sustainable. GPs work exceptionally hard. They are dedicated and committed. None of this is at their door. It is clearly at the door of the Government. GPs are under huge pressure. They are operating with the lowest levels of practice-based staff among comparable countries. They are increasingly expected to run complex small and medium enterprises while trying to provide front-line care. As Deputy Cullinane said, those GPs who we are talking to, whether here in Ireland or abroad, are telling us that they do not want to be entrepreneurs. They do not want to run businesses, by and large. They want to provide care. That is what they studied. One said to me that if they wanted to run a business, they would have done an MBA, not a medical course. Our approach is really straightforward. We would increase GP training places from 350 to 450, lift the recruitment cap for front-line roles and expand the multidisciplinary primary care teams. Investing in primary care is efficient. It is probably the best way to spend money in the health service, so if we are serious about rural Ireland, access to GP care must be available in every town and village.

Sentiment score: 0.08