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

We are working with doctors to deal with some of those issues. For example, just on 3 April, we published the terms of reference for a strategic review of general practice. That is the HSE and all stakeholders, including the Irish College of General Practitioners, ICGP, and the Irish Medical Organisation, IMO, working together to deal with some of the issues the Deputy mentioned. Yet, some of the issues are not as straightforward as the Deputy might make out. We have had some difficult experiences with registering foreign doctors in Ireland. You are asking for trouble by just saying that we should register somebody in a month, quite frankly. There are a few things we need to be very careful about. If we register somebody in a month, fast-track them or do it quickly and if they turn out not to be qualified or not to be the person they claim they are, the consequences will be catastrophic for patients. Therefore, the Deputy needs to think through some of the suggestions he is making.

In terms of what we are doing, we have increased the rural practice allowance by 10%. In the agreement we just made with GPs the other day in relation to the extension of the GP visit cards, we have made improvements to maternity and paternity leave arrangements. Under the 2019 agreement, an additional €210 million is allocated to general practice, which is a 40% increase.

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