Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Public policy on discussions or consultations with professional organisations such as those representing GPs has, since about the mid-1970s, been to engage with one representative body rather than try to negotiate or communicate with multiple bodies claiming to hold the mandate for that particular group of people. The Deputy cannot say on the one hand that one organisation represents 80% of the people it represents when, on the other, another organisation claims more or less the same thing because both sets of details cannot be true. In the case of GPs, the representative body which is affiliated with ICTU and has been for many years is the IMO. The NAGP is a relatively new body which is not affiliated with ICTU, and the Department's understanding is that its membership is less than that of the IMO. Nevertheless, the Department is happy to take input from the NAGP and has had some contact with the organisation and will consider any input we receive from it regarding any efficiencies it might like to see in our system and our offering. We will, however, continue to hold substantive discussions with the IMO as it is the body that is recognised as holding the representative rights for all GPs.

If Deputy Brady wants to make stuff up as he goes along, that is his will, and it is probably a practice that is well engaged by Sinn Féin. The reality of the matter is that the new forms and the new system have brought far greater efficiencies than were ever there before. When we used to get an old form and it had to be manually inputted, people would have to wait perhaps five or six days for their illness payments. Now when the form comes in it is scanned in on the same day and the client gets the payment the following day. I do not know in what world Deputy Brady does not think that is a better system. In our world, however, we think that having efficiencies is a good thing, not only in the Department, which ultimately saves the Department money and allows us then to spend that money elsewhere. Perhaps in Deputy Brady's world it is not a good thing.

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