Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for his response and, in particular, I welcome the increase in the number of training places that he mentioned, as well as the agreement between the HSE and the Irish College of General Practitioners announced earlier this year on the future delivery of the national programme of specialist GP training by the college. That is a positive. What I want to take from this debate is an acknowledgement that the demographics of Kildare, with such a young population that is due to age and which is consistently growing, will lead to greater demand on GP services into the future. There is an ageing aspect in our current GP services and a problem in Kildare with retention of the trainees we are putting through the system.

We have 20 trainer GPs throughout the county doing great work but we are not retaining enough of those they are training. Any GP in Kildare wants to know that when he or she retires, somebody else will take his or her place and care for patients at the consistent level shown heretofore. A rural area such as Castledermot reaches from the Wicklow border over to Athy. In places such Athy town, Newbridge, Kilcullen and everywhere in between, patients are concerned about this matter. With many families, the GP is the first port of call when anybody needs a service. KDOC is doing a fantastic job out of hours and, as I said, there were 60,000 clients last year. It is phenomenal and one of the most successful out-of-hours services in the country. With GP services, now is the time for us to plan adequately for the future. I hope that consideration will be taken as part of the realignment with the Irish College of General Practitioners. I ask the Minister of State to make the point through his good offices.

See this speech in context