Dr. Laura Noonan:

The resources and the remunerations that we are discussing in terms of general practice - namely, the capitation and subsidies - are made to pay for premises, secretarial support and practice nurse support. Without this money, it would be impossible to grow a practice. Someone starting with a zero list has no patients and, therefore, has no input from the HSE in terms of capitation or subsidy payments. One must have a list of a certain size for subsidies, a model that is very anti-setting up in practice.