Dr. Karena Hanley:

I will give the Deputy two good mechanisms to be used in arriving at the figure. The first is to think of any service provider in the State who has expertise and invested a huge amount of time in training to get to a certain point and has the full gamut and range of responsibilities of a GP. The second way to arrive at the figure is through international evidence on primary care services which suggests that to have a strong primary care system GPs should earn at least 80% of the salaries of their hospital consultant colleagues.