Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle and his staff for allowing me to raise this issue this evening. Being a Galway man, the Minister of State is probably familiar with Kiltane and Bangor Erris, which is at the centre of the parish. There has been an excellent general practitioner serving that community for some years now. The superb staff there give a very good service. It was difficult to fill the vacancy when it arose some years ago but the GP has worked hard and built confidence with the community and he is providing a good service. We understand from the HSE that he has been offered another position in the west of Ireland and intends to take that up. As the Minister of State can imagine, members of the community are concerned that they will be left without GP services. There is an information deficit about what may happen at the end of February when the GP is due to take up the new position.

This raises the wider issue of rural GP services. I note Deputy Harty is here with us. The Minster of State did not make it out to the GP protest outside the House yesterday but he will have heard the frustrations of GPs, old and young, on resourcing. This is a broader issue which I raised during Priority Questions with the Minister for Rural and Community Development, Deputy Ring, some weeks ago. It is not right that the Department of Rural and Community Development is giving everything to try to maintain services. The Minister of State at the Department of Health has to step up to the mark as well.

We should use Bangor Erris as a case study or pilot study. I reckon the time has come for the HSE to step in and provide surgeries and facilities in the same way that IDA Ireland provides advance factories. The HSE should provide, through a public service obligation, a subsidy towards the employment and retention of staff.

One of the reasons these communities are not as big as we would wish them to be is diminishing services. If we provided support in terms of premises and a subsidy towards the running costs of GP practices in rural areas, we would attract GP services to rural communities and retain them. People would be willing to apply to provide the service. I appeal to the Minister of State to use this situation as a potential case study and to engage with HSE officials in Mayo. They are trying their best to try to resolve this issue. We need to give certainty to the people of Bangor Erris and Kiltane in respect of the long-term provision of GP services in that proud community, which needs this service. For a small investment, the Minister of State would find that we could come up with a model that might help to resolve some of our issues about providing GP services throughout the country.

I appeal to the Minster of State to go back to his Tuam and Galway roots, champion this issue at Government and work with various Departments. Let us try to do this and keep the current doctor in Kiltane and Bangor Erris. Let us allow him to provide the kind of service that he wants to provide to those in a community who trust him greatly.

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