I commend the Social Democrats on bringing this motion forward. I am very happy to support it. The shortage of GPs in my constituency of Louth has been long flagged, yet the issues remain. Last year, my party colleague flagged that County Louth was currently facing a critical shortage of general practitioners, with reports indicating that it had the highest number of medical card holders in Ireland waiting to be assigned a doctor. Prior to that, a study by the Irish College of General Practitioners showed a 2.8% reduction of the number of GPs in Louth. This is at a time when we are seeing huge population increases throughout the county, in Drogheda, Dundalk and Ardee. Because people cannot access a GP, we have seen several calls in recent months from the management of Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda for the public to avoid emergency departments unless absolutely necessary due to the severe overcrowding and, in some cases, extremely high patient numbers. What a great country we have when we cannot provide timely medical care. The ratio of GPs to population is estimated at seven per 10,000, which indicates slow progress. As outlined by my colleagues, the number of actively practising GPs is falling year on year. It is estimated that one in four of these doctors is over 60 years of age, which poses a huge problem coming down the tracks. It is just not good enough. Consistently, in our annual alternative budgets, Sinn Féin has offered costed solutions to all of these issues. The Government's response is to do something, if anything, but not the right thing. To begin to solve this crisis the Government needs to immediately increase the number of GP trainee entrants from 350 to 450 and support the Irish College of General Practitioners to expedite training, where appropriate. We need to increase training places across medical, nursing and allied health and social care professions, lift the recruitment cap for front-line roles and double the recruitment target for 2024 to expand the multidisciplinary, primary and enhanced community care teams. The solutions are there but, unfortunately, the do-nothing approach by successive Governments is having a detrimental impact on people's lives.

Sentiment score: 0.16