I think we all have to admit that we stumble from disaster to disaster in this House. We had the SNA disaster last night. We have the disaster of housing with 17,000 people who are homeless in this country. Now we are talking about the disaster of GP care. There are seven GPs per 10,000 people in this country. There is a falling rate of GPs, with GPs retiring. A total of 70% of GPs cannot take on additional clients. Our population is out of control because we are ten years ahead of where we thought we would be. We have not predicted that. We are now in a situation where most of our medical students, from doctors to nurses, are leaving this country because there is nothing there for them. They cannot afford to buy a house. They do not want to be in business in this country, and rightly so. People who study medicine want to be carers for people; they do not want to be in business. We have forced GPs into that business mindset. Now we have this disaster ahead of us. Our successful Irish people in the medical profession are mainly working in the United Arab Emirates if we look at it closely. We are producing medical students but they are leaving our shores because there is nothing here for them. I want to highlight something in Cork North-Central in my constituency, and that is SouthDoc. SouthDoc has been closed from 2021 to 2026. It opened in January in order for its licence to be renewed, which is an internal renewal. If you want to go to SouthDoc on the north side of the city, you cannot get an appointment there. They do not answer the phone or will tell you the GP is out on call, so there is no point in turning up. They tell you to go to the south side of the city. Many of the constituents I represent cannot afford a taxi to go to the south side of the city for SouthDoc. That is the reality of life in this country, and certainly the reality in my constituency. Thankfully, somebody called Colin Tobin in Gurranabraher opened NorthDoc, a private practice that is facilitating people throughout the north side. He does not take medical card patients as of yet. I believe there may an application to the Department. I would hope to see that application being rushed through and being accepted so that it will be able to take medical card patients. The reality is that it is a disaster. I welcome the motion from my colleagues. I do not see it being passed or implemented. I cannot see it being implemented because the reality is we are not at the races when it comes to GP care in this country. We are way behind everywhere else in Europe. We need to move to the European model.

Sentiment score: -0.03