Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

Then the HSE has to get national agreement on things. Why does the HSE not just try to recruit GPs to staff out-of-hours services part-time? That way, people would have an alternative to going to their local EDs. It is very regrettable that this has not been pursued seriously. In 2018, the then Minister announced that there would be salaried GPs. There has been zero progress on that. It is a proposal coming from the Irish College of General Practitioners again now as a way of addressing this. Again, this seems blindingly obvious, and it is regrettable that that has not been done.