Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman for his questions. I reiterate the point on the primary care budget, amounting to more than €1 billion per year, which is seeing a shortfall for this point in the year of €7.7 million. It is my expectation and that of the HSE that the full primary care budget will be expended this year. I reassure the committee in that respect. I very much take the Chairman's point and I made it myself in recent weeks, when people endeavoured to misrepresent publicly the fees paid to GPs as though the fee paid to a GP equated to the income of a GP, which it certainly does not. A GP in this country effectively has to run a small or medium business, hiring staff and practice nurses. The GP is paid to provide a service, and in my view that service is one of good value and it is valued by our citizens.

Members are correct in that a new contract for GPs is badly needed and we do not want to lose what is good about general practice in this country. It is the one area where we do not have a waiting list. I do not agree with those in general practice who believe this means we can never extend free GP care to children. I do not believe that and that can happen, although it must be done as part of a bigger discussion about resourcing and the sustainability of general practice into the future. That is why when I became Minister for Health, rather than just wanting to speak to GPs about free GP care for children and nothing else, I asked to have the conversation as part of a broader discussion, asking what we need to do to help general practice to be sustainable into the future and addressing the challenges in rural areas and areas of urban deprivation with respect to the availability of GPs. If we are to resource general practice better and invest in general practice, as the Chairman and Deputy Durkan noted, we must consider the benefit of that to the acute hospital sector.

I believe we can all agree that here patients must present at an acute hospital but in other countries they simply never would have to arrive there. That is not a criticism of patients as they no more want to be there than the man in the moon but they have nowhere else to go. The Chairman is a GP and knows this but I am told by GPs all the time that they can do more but can only do it if they are resourced to do more. They are up for doing more. I do not want to say too much more because of the ongoing discussions. On the GP training, I make the point-----