Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

The ICGP has done a lot of work in this area. It is great that it is now responsible for training, but the people in that organisation are the ones who provide the policy basis for general practice. They have identified four areas: workforce, workload, IT and data, and bricks and mortar. It is very important that we address all of those. Part and parcel of that is accepting the current business model for general practice works for some people, especially existing GPs, and maybe some in the future, but it does not cater for all GPs.

The important thing is to ask newly qualified GPs why so many of them are leaving this country and going abroad. They have already been asked that in various surveys and it is not about money. Everybody wants a decent income, but GPs do not want to be businesspeople. They want to be doctors practising medicine, they want to work as part of a multidisciplinary team, they want support in their practice and they want a better work-life balance. Does the Minister accept that all those issues are key to ensuring we keep people here after their training?

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