Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

GPs are the first port of call for patients. The ICGP was before us prior to Christmas and it said the crisis in the Irish mental health care service is also a crisis in general practice. Do the witnesses agree with that? There is constant talk of the need to build up our primary care services but I do not understand how our GPs are going to have the capacity to protect or care for patients who present with mental health difficulties. It was said that GPs aged over 60 now accounted for 30% of the workforce and we do not know if these will be replaced. Before Christmas, we were told there were only 37 GPs in Kilkenny, 38 in Longford and 41 in Kildare and that last year was the first year ever that ten places on the GP training scheme were not filled. We need them but we cannot recruit them, never mind retain them, so what is the solution?