Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

That is the system in use in the UK. If nurses go for their training in the UK, they are supplemented but they are contracted to work back there for three years, not five. When a person went to the UK to do training as a nurse, some of the places here would not take him or her when he or she came back here. They said that the person was trained differently in the UK than a person is here.

As for the problem we have now with the shortage of GPs and the idea of primary care centres, I will use Kilmallock as an example. I used it yesterday too. There are five GPs in that primary care centre and there is planning permission for an extra 6,000 sq. ft onto that system. It could be used for day-care services for people who need stitches, oxygen, a drip service and so forth. They would use the system for a day and would take off it. It would also encourage trainee GPs and nurses to go to towns and villages in which there is a primary care centre in the knowledge that their travel will be covered for them to get in and out. This means they would be encouraged to go to those centres and that they can actually be put outside of the cities, whereas all major hospitals are within the cities. This is a massive problem with GPs because this is no longer viable for them. If something is put in to subvent these people, care to cover the whole country will be encouraged and not just people coming into the hospital sector. It will encourage people to stay.

To go back to what Deputy Buckley said, the cost of living, education and travelling are what is stopping people here. The cost of everything has increased now. We must ensure that we have a plan in place. Going back to accommodation, it 100% should be supplied to anyone who is in our front-line services. The Government should have buildings in which it can supply on-site for them during their training. That would mean they would not have a problem with accommodation and we could keep people here while they do their training. There should be an element of payback that is returned here, which would give people a chance to settle and have a life here.