Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Here is a quote for the Minister of State:

Every child gets free health and development checks from 0 to 5 years. This is to make sure they are healthy and developing normally.

Checks will happen with a healthcare professional, for example your public health nurse (PHN), GP practice nurse or GP. They will normally happen at home or at your local health centre.

You can use these visits and health checks to ask any questions or talk about any concerns about yourself or your baby.

This is not misinformation on a Facebook post generated by some IT farm in Russia. This is not a typical post on X. This is not even a statement from the White House briefing room. This is our own Health Service Executive, but it is factually misleading, because in the constituency I represent, Dublin Mid-West, within community healthcare organisation, CHO, 7, in areas like Lucan, parts of Clondalkin, Newcastle and elsewhere, parents have been unable to get health checks. Stephen Donnelly, the former Minister, confirmed that GPs do not do the checks. Parents have tried to have them carried out. The Government has acknowledged many times before that this is a problem. The main responsibility for carrying out the checks rests in the hands of our hard-working, hard-pressed and underpaid public health nurses. As we know, along with staffing in other areas of healthcare, there is a serious shortage of public health nurses across the country. This is especially true in my constituency. Despite advertisements at job fairs abroad, we have not been able to get nurses.

I have been raising this matter for several years. If we cannot get these healthcare professionals in, we have to look at new ways of doing it. That is why I believe that a Dublin allowance would make a great deal of sense. There is a precedent in this regard. There is such an allowance for inner London and outer London. There is something similar in Paris. This is an important matter, particularly as 14,000 of the 80,000 nursing staff in the country in 2010 have left. We need to bring those people back.

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