Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am concentrating on the amendment. This is the fundamental part of the problem. The Minister might have reached agreement with the vast majority of GPs had the Minister engaged in a modicum of consultation with these doctors and listened to their fears. They are busy in their practices every day of the week. They are not people who are out marching and protesting about this, that and the other. However, this interferes with a fundamental part of their Hippocratic oath, their beliefs and their education. They spent a lot of time gaining their medical degrees and developing their working expertise, and they want to be listened to, which is not unnatural in a democracy. They should have been listened to and engaged with. The Minister went out of his way to meet all sorts of groups with any acronym on the other side but would not meet the GPs at any stage to discuss this legislation. What was he hiding? What was he afraid to debate? Why does he have to run to the populist side and use a bulldozer to drive this legislation through at all costs? It is a trophy project for himself. Those GPs are facing absolute and utter chaos on a daily basis. When they refer people to accident and emergency departments they cannot get an ambulance so people are left in their surgeries.

They go to an accident and emergency department in Tipperary and they are lucky if they get a trolley. They cannot get a pillowcase or a blanket. Then there are early discharges.

The front line is the GP service. It is nowhere else. We have seen all the areas of the free GP care for young people. Now this service is going to be rolled out against GPs' will. They will be forced and coerced to refer against their fundamental beliefs. It is despicable, it is sad and it is disrespectful towards a profession that has served this State well. I know many of them who continue to work long after retirement age because they have a rapport and a sense of commitment to patients, their families and their communities. I am not just talking about rural areas. I am talking about urban areas as well. They are part of the very fabric of what makes it good to live in a community. This Government is shamelessly stripping everything from our community.

My fundamental reason for putting this amendment forward is the lack of clarity on the implications that arise if doctors have to refer. One of the lives they see in a pregnant woman would be taken. That is what they fundamentally disagree with. This could have been worked out if the Minister had the courage or the respect to meet with GPs.

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