This is a well-meaning motion and universality sounds great but I have problems with it. It often redirects funds from low-income families to rich families. Approximately 629,000 people are in poverty in this country. While those individuals are in poverty, I do not think we should be using taxpayers' money to pay for Michael O'Leary's children's healthcare. A woman came into my office recently with a low income. She is waiting months for an operation on her neck. She is losing the function of her hand and her leg. If she does not get this operation soon, she will have to go into care, which is an incredible situation. The funds that we have in this country should be focused on people on low- and middle-incomes. One of the reasons universality is often popular is that there is a welfare cliff and a support cliff in this country. Where we do offer supports, often the threshold is far too low, and therefore middle-income families who are struggling often fall off that cliff very quickly. If we were to do anything in terms of these funds, it is to focus on low- and middle-income earners and to raise those thresholds in terms of free access to GP services, so that there is not, in a practical sense, anybody who is not accessing healthcare because of an economic reason. The other point in this is that we are in a slow-motion car crash in terms of what is happening to GP access in this country. A total of 70% of GPs cannot take any more people onto their lists. People come into my office on a regular basis who tell me that they cannot get a doctor's appointment. I know of an individual who called a doctor at 10 a.m. By 3 p.m., he decided to go into accident and emergency. He got treated and came home. The doctor called him and said he could deal with him in ten days' time. I know of another person who spoke to 18 doctors and could not get on their lists on the day they were sick. If you increase universality in terms of access of doctors and GPs at the moment, it will reduce access to GPs currently in this system. There is no doubt about it. If you look at the figures, when GP consultations for children under six were increased, there was a 28% increase in first-year use of that system. The ESRI estimates that free GP care would lead to an additional 2.3 million GP visits annually - a 12% increase. When you do not have an increase in supply in the system, that is going to create major problems. There are two problems in terms of doctors. A total of 442 doctors were issued with temporary work visas in 2022. Doctors are voting with their feet and leaving this country. This is a fact that nobody in talking about other than Aontú, Some 51% of students in medical schools in this country are from outside Ireland and the EU. They are training here and are likely to return to their home country to practise. We need to make sure that we provide extra GP places but also for people who are likely to work in this jurisdiction.

Sentiment score: -0.03