Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I do not know if the Cabinet is meeting in the next two weeks. I understand that the Minister will bring specific proposals on developing Sláintecare to Cabinet in the next three to four weeks. An executive director will be appointed within the same period. That recruitment process is substantially under way at the moment, and should be completed within the next three to four weeks. The appointment of an executive director is the starting point for driving forward the proposals that are cleared by the Government.

The expansion of medical cards and GP practice were raised. As the Chairman will be well aware, there is a proposal in the programme for Government to increase the number of training places for GPs to 259. I appreciate that it takes so many years to train a GP. The number of training places this year has increased to 190, up from 120 trained last year. There were 400 applications last year for those 190 training places. That is a significant increase. The future in the medium term looks reasonably promising, notwithstanding the challenge involved in bridging the time before those people become GPs.

On the topic of recruitment, I note-----