Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is but it is the IMO that would be raising the concerns rather than the professional body. I was well aware of the concerns, as we all were, on budget day. The IMO and GPs have been raising capacity concerns. They had been raising concerns even about doing something much more modest, which was adding six- and seven-year-olds, which is approximately 70,000 children. We were well aware that announcing an additional 430,000 would not necessarily be well received by GPs or the IMO. We were well aware of that. What we had been asked to do at the start of this was to wait until the strategic review had happened, there was a new GP contract in place and there were many more GPs in situ. I took a view that we should not wait. I took a view that the Oireachtas as a whole called for this in 2017-----