Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies for raising this important issue. I acknowledge there are some rural areas, and also some urban areas, where we are struggling to recruit GPs. Often, individual circumstances are the reason that is the case. Much of this has to do with the fact that the world has changed and GPs are much less willing to be single-handed in the way they were in the past. They want to work in group practices and to be able to share weekend and night cover. That makes it much harder to provide a GP everywhere because GPs now tend to work in groups. Notwithstanding that, there are now more GPs in Ireland than ever before, more GPs on the specialist register than ever before-----

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