Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have a number of other questions, in particular for Dr. Quinlan and Dr. Crowley. As I should have said at the outset, collectively, GPs have done an incredible job in the past two years. There have been negatives, of course, and there were appointments that GPs were unable to fulfil because they were snowed under, which is not their fault and is a fact of the crisis we have been in. One of the positives has been how prescriptions have issued and how everything has moved very fluidly in that regard. Will some of those gains continue?

GP nurses have been fantastic. Much of the time when I go to my local GP practice, I do not even need to go into the doctor because the small-level stuff that I need can be adequately dealt with. This leads to huge fluidity. The State provides some subsidisation for GP practice nurses. I am curious as to whether there is standardisation of pay and conditions or is each practice the employer and sets its own terms.

With regard to GPs who train abroad, I did an Erasmus year study during college in the Czech Republic and I was amazed to find out there were eight or nine Irish students training to be doctors at the time and they are now all in the system, hopefully. Is the trend for them to come back home or do most of them stay and practice in continental Europe?