Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister is right that the eighth amendment is a separate issue, but I was concerned that the NAGP was hearing Ministers talk about a GP-led service when it, as the representative of many of the GPs, has not been consulted. Similarly, the association wrote to the Minister about CervicalCheck pointing out that although the Minister was saying that GPs would play a big role in supporting the women concerned, the association could not get any information from him. When it cannot get responses from the Government to those letters, one must be worried.

However, this question is about the negotiation on the GP contract. In August 2016 the Minister said the following: "I think it is absolutely essential that we have the new contract negotiated and I want to see the NAGP as part of that ... what I am doing is saying very clearly that when we get down to negotiating the GP contact, which I expect to happen by the end of the year [which was by the end of 2016], that the NAGP need to be in the room". It is now two years later and the negotiations on the GP contract started months ago. The NAGP, on foot of this promise, has written to the Minister repeatedly but it cannot even get a letter in response to say when he expects its representatives to be in the room. Does the Minister think that is sufficient or have the Minister and the Department fallen short of the standards and level of engagement required in this case? Will he now give the NAGP a clear timeline for when it can negotiate as well?

See this speech in context