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

I want to raise one other issue and that is the weakness of the out-of-hours cover that is being provided. It seems to be more designed to comply with an outdated contract rather than actually providing alternative pathways for people to the emergency departments, EDs. A parent with a young child has very few options in terms of where they can access care out of hours. Is there potential for employing GPs to provide out-of-hours services, especially as a lot of female GPs, for example, would like the flexibility of that? Have the witnesses looked at the possibility of employing people to work part-time or out of hours?