Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for his reply and I do not disagree with his analysis at all. It is frustrating to me that we did not bring it in this month. The Deputy is absolutely correct in that this was the plan and that was what we budgeted for and what we wanted to achieve. The GP community asked us to wait and the choice was to proceed, which we could have done in spite of that, or to give the process a bit more time out of respect for general practice to ensure that we get it right. I would have much preferred to have made the April deadline. We are going to give this a short extended period, very much out of respect for general practice and for the fantastic work it does and out of respect for the union to give it that extra bit of time.

A substantial amount is available and in discussions over the weekend with GPs I pointed that there is money for a significant increase in practice nurses, investment in information technology, which is something that many GP practices want and to examine fees for the general medical services, GMS, scheme and other measures we will use to try to make this work and get it right.

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