Naoise Ó Cearúil (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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81. To ask the Minister for Health for an update regarding the proposed primary care centre in Maynooth; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [10050/25]

Naoise Ó Cearúil (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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Ar dtús báire, guím gach rath ar an Aire. I wish the Minister well with her new brief. We have seen the success of primary care. I look to my home town of Maynooth, which is yet to have a primary care centre. I have been calling for this for a long time. The population of Maynooth is 17,000, on top of which there are 14,000 students, as I mentioned previously, and a projected population increase of 10,000. We are looking at a town of around 31,000 without a primary care centre. Will the Minister update us regarding the proposed primary care centre in Maynooth?

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for allowing me to update the House on this matter. Significant consideration has been given to developing primary care centres for both Maynooth and Leixlip. Since 2015, while several site locations for a primary care centre in Maynooth were explored, no suitable option has come about. As a result, a larger primary care centre will be built in Leixlip to serve both the Maynooth and Leixlip populations and their surrounding areas. However, and importantly, as part of that plan, the HSE will continue to deliver health services locally from the Maynooth health centre which will serve as a satellite and complementary unit to the larger north-east Kildare primary care centre in Leixlip. The development of the larger primary care centre in Leixlip has some advantages for service users which include access to a larger multidisciplinary team and the co-location of both core services and the enhanced community care programme community specialist teams in a larger and improved clinical space. It is welcome news that we are moving forward with more services in that region generally. A schedule of accommodation is being finalised with a view to the HSE tendering in the second quarter of 2025. I recognise that the population is growing in Leixlip and Maynooth. I welcome the HSE's commitment to continuously review infrastructure in those areas in conjunction with Kildare County Council. I examined the location, distance and public transport routes between Maynooth and Leixlip to best understand how people would access the more significant service that will be available in Leixlip. I am aware that Maynooth continues to grow. It was the original intention to have that facility there. A number of issues have been thrown up in that infrastructure process that give me pause as Minister for Health as to how we will deliver better infrastructure around the country.

Naoise Ó Cearúil (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the news about the primary care centre in Leixlip. As the Minister mentioned, it will be a significant investment by the State and a significant primary care centre in Leixlip but bear in mind that the whole idea of primary care is accessibility, that older people, young families and mums with children can walk down to a primary care centre and receive care in the community. I ask the Minister, as she stated, to continue the review. This goes back as far as 2015. It is now ten years on and no real progress has been made for a primary care centre for north-east Kildare. While it is positive that there will be a primary care centre in Leixlip, for a town the size of Maynooth - it is the same in south County Dublin, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, Louth and Meath - there need to be primary care centres. It is not good enough that towns are combined for primary care.

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I could not agree with the Deputy more. The intention was to do this in Maynooth. Several site locations for the Maynooth area have been explored since 2015 within HSE and State capital, but with no success. The important point is that the HSE applied for planning permission to develop a primary care centre on the site of the current health centre in Maynooth and it was not approved. The HSE had to seek planning permission to turn a health centre into a health centre, and it was not approved. I have a serious commitment to developing health infrastructure in this country. I want to deliver the services that I believe Maynooth and everywhere else needs. I am serious about the infrastructure guidelines and how we have to go about doing things. It will hamper the delivery. I am not trying criticise planners or their decisions - I appreciate that every application is different - but there was a need for a site in Maynooth, planning permission was applied for to turn a health centre into a health centre and now we have to do it in Leixlip.

Naoise Ó Cearúil (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister has hit the nail on the head. There was a site where a health centre was to be changed into a health centre, which is ludicrous. There is a wider argument around planning, particularly how one arm of the State speaks to another. That is a wider question. I welcome that there will be a primary care centre in Leixlip. I will continue to work with the Minister to try to find an alternative site in Maynooth. I appreciate all the work she has been doing in increasing primary care throughout the country.

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I am well aware of how much the town of Maynooth has grown in population and in its need. The best we can do is make sure that the Leixlip site is delivered and services are available there, that services in Maynooth are also delivered to the extent possible and that the broader community has access to both centres. I thank the Deputy for his question. There is no lack of commitment in relation to Maynooth, just this direct problem which I hope we do not continue to have. We will have to figure out a way around it, otherwise we will not get anything built.