Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome our guests this morning. I apologise. There are four committee rooms down here. I was at the Joint Committee on Transport and Communications and so this is a nice break away from talking about airports.

I have read the briefing notes. Unfortunately, I was not following most of the debate here. The witnesses mentioned rural doctors a few times. Last month the Clare Public Participation Network published a poverty report specifically on the county of Clare. To my knowledge this is the only county-related, county-confined poverty report we have at the moment in the country. They are all national metrics of poverty, but this is the only county-specific one. It highlighted that our access to GP care in Clare is 33% below the national average. We have beautiful towns and villages along the Wild Atlantic Way, lovely to visit in the summertime but maybe not the most attractive place to live and set up a practice after coming out of college. A number of GP posts have been advertised but apparently nobody is willing to fill them. What could best incentivise a young doctor to come to the west of Ireland to a county like Clare, Galway or Mayo and set up to have his or herfull career there? As people who know this best, what would the witnesses recommend?