Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 18 June 2025

Committee on Disability Matters

Progressing the Delivery of Disability Policy and Services: Discussion (Resumed)

2:00 am

Mr. Bernard Gloster:

If it is there, I would say that the Deputy should have it. Ms Queally will certainly take that back to her colleagues. We will follow that up.

With regard to primary care, although I am still going through the Estimates process, my intention and hope is that within the health allocation for next year, we will be able to address some of the deficit that has arisen in primary care because of many other reasons. My problem with it is that, to be fair to the Minister, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, if she says, “Here is X for primary care”, with the recruitment pipelines and supply lines that we know we have, the likelihood is that will impinge or impact on something else because people will move and mobilise. However, I would rather have the chance of people mobilising to where they feel they will be most productive and where they want to be professionally.

We get a better return from professionals in that circumstance. If I advertise 500 jobs in primary care tomorrow, they have to come from somewhere. There are very few professionals who could work in primary care who are unemployed. There is only a small portion that will come from abroad. It is a double-edged sword.

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