Mr. Bernard Gloster:

That is going to affect such issues as out-of-hours availability. Finally, last year and this year, another support to general practitioners, apart from the direct payments to them, has been a substantial increase in their direct access to diagnostics. Therefore, they do not have to send people to hospital. There has also been a substantial increase of allied health professionals with more than 2,000 now working directly in primary care accessible to GPs such as physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy and community nursing, with specialist services available to GPs only for chronic disease management. Substantial efforts have been made to increase support. To be fair to Deputy Dillon, there are parts of Ireland where it is seriously challenged.