Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for selecting this matter for discussion.

The Minister should not lose sight of the significance of Deputies McGinley and Pringle as well as myself speaking with one voice on this issue, as it is rare that this occurs in the House. This issue goes to the core of services to rural communities. Deputy Mac Lochlainn asked me to express his support for the position the two previous speakers and I are taking on this matter, which affects west County Donegal and the Inishowen Peninsula. Under the current proposal, Derrybeg and Carndonagh will lose a permanent general practitioner service from midnight until 9 a.m. in two phases. In the first phase, the service will be lost from Sunday until Thursday, while in the second, which would be implemented in the summer, the service would be lost completely.

This issue goes to the core of the type of service people want to maintain in their area. They do not want the current service to be diminished as it would result in many people waiting for 45 minutes for a doctor to arrive. The Minister has visited west Donegal. In winter months, the main road to the area is frequently closed due to frost and so forth. People in the area do not want to take risks.

The out-of-hours general practitioner service also serves island communities. I wrote to the Minister and chief executive officer of the Health Service Executive in February welcoming an intervention of the HSE in appointing an interlocutor to negotiate between Caredoc, the HSE and general practitioners on the unfolding crisis in the out-of-hours service. The problem is that Caredoc was about to withdraw from the out-of-hours service in February.

GPs say one of the big problems is that the HSE removed the financial support that was there to fund these doctors during the red-eye shift about five years ago. Caredoc is losing a huge amount of money as a result of this and, therefore, wants to reduce the number of doctors from three to two. It will have its own version of the story. I have been dealing with this since 2011 and raised it umpteen times in the Chamber.

I want to say go mbeidh sé inglactha ag pobal na Gaeltachta agus pobal Inis Eoghain má théann sé seo ar aghaidh. Beidh go leor daoine agus go leor agóidí le feiceáil ar na sráideanna má théann sé ar aghaidh. Tá súil agam go n-éisteoidh an tAire. I hope the Minister listens to the concerns of the public and does not wash his hands of the matter by saying it is an issue for the HSE. This is an issue concerning services to rural areas. I could tell the Minister stories about lives that were saved as a result of the NowDoc service being very close to the individuals involved. I hope a solution can be found to this problem.

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