John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Will the witnesses expand on some of the potential solutions outlined in the IMO submission? What are the particular pinch points? I represent Dublin South-West, which moves towards the mountains and takes in Rathfarnham, Templeogue, Greenhills, Citywest, all of Tallaght, Knocklyon and Ballycullen. What is interesting to me as someone who comes from Rathfarnham is that Scholarstown Road runs from Marlay Park to Oldbawn and there is no GP practice south of that road and no GP practice has been established, although there are thousands of houses. We have a new primary care centre coming in Ballyboden and Tallaght is reasonably well provided for in terms of primary care, so, moving north of that road, there is a reasonably plentiful supply of GPs. Through bereavement and retirement, there has been a loss of GPs. The impact the loss of just one GP has is incredible, and I know some local GPs would have up to 8,000 patients on their books. That is just the geography of it. It has always struck me that in all of that newly developed area which has developed over the last ten to 15 years, there is no GP practice. What can we do to help deal with that?

One of the things I have been conscious of is that if GPs have a family practice, it tends to be the end house converted into a practice. Even in the planning system, we do not make provision for GP practices in new developments, although we make provision for preschools, village centres and so on, and a GP may get the top floor position in that. Is it something the witnesses have a view on? Would it help if we included it in the planning requirement for an area?