Professor Susan Smith:

Deputy Harty mentioned retention and I feel we have not really answered his question. I do not know that there is a clear answer. However, this is not just a problem for Ireland. There is a huge issue in North America around family practice as well because graduates there have even higher debt than their counterparts here and they simply gravitate towards high-earning specialties. It is about workforce planning. We will have to come up with solutions to address what will be a crisis in the next decade in terms of the availability of GPs.