Micheál Martin (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)

I said there are 179 primary care centres now in place. Of those, 50 have opened since 2020. I take the Deputy's point that we still need more GPs. The outgoing Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly, had approved, with the outgoing Minister for higher education, now Tánaiste, additional places in all third level colleges in respect of medicine and also, in terms of nursing and so on, in Northern Ireland. In terms of the specifics, we also have programmes to attract people into rural Ireland and to provide greater cover in rural Ireland in terms of rural GP programmes. We fully accept the challenges that are out there and I will inquire about Rathdowney and other locations in County Laois and, critically, the status of the Portlaoise project. We are committed to primary care and we will continue to expand primary care.

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