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

Ms O'Shea and Dr. Conlon are very welcome. I thank them for all the work they have done. I want to pick up on the issue of the three-day wait. The clarification provided today is important. Ms O'Shea is recommending that the mandatory element of that be removed and of course that women would still be free to attend their GP on further occasions if they have any concerns or doubts and that those appointments would be covered under the contract of the GP. That is a really important point and one that has not come out to date in my view.

I ask about the findings regarding the impact of the existing three-day mandatory wait in respect of people trying to get appointments with GPs and the difficulty of doing that given the shortage of GPs. This especially applies to people living in rural areas where there would be travel involved and all the implications of that for work and for delay.