Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am also responsible for the people of south-east Galway, and the Senator is quite right. We attended that meeting the other night and it is important to share here that a selection of GPs from right across the Ballinasloe, Kilconnell, Kiltormer, Eyrecourt, Lawrencetown area were in attendance. There was one outlier, a Dr. Fahey, who came with me came from Portumna to attend. The whole purpose of the meeting was to ensure the creation of a cell in what I would deem technically the Ballinasloe area and to highlight the need for this. As the Senator can see from the response from the Department, no additional funding has been approved to this request. The €528,000 that was sought from the HSE for the creation of this cell has not been approved under the budgetary allocation. I could come to the House and give a very fluffy answer, skirt around the edges and not give it exactly as it is. As it is, no funding in budget 2023 has been allocated for the creation of a new cell in the proposal that has been forwarded by the HSE.

What has been awarded is €2.5 million to the HSE in the west to ensure the continuation of the HSE Westdoc practices currently in operation. That is €2.5 million that is to go all the way across an area that covers CHO 2, which we discussed at length the other night. We saw how much investment was made in 2021 and 2022, but now we have a real figure as to what that comes to. It comes to €2.5 million for Westdoc in our area, but it completely excludes everything from the bridge in Portumna to the bridge in Banagher, all the way to south Roscommon to the areas and the GPs the Senator talks about, including the Ballinasloe area.

What concerns me greatly, and I raised this with the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, is that the GPs in the Ballinasloe area have served notice to withdraw their weekend cover from 1 December. There were very clear about that. If that were to happen, it would be the first time in 50 years that our GPs would have withdrawn from providing a service but also the first time in 50 years they have would terminated themselves out of a contract. They are contracted, of course, but not supported. In fairness to the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, when I met him, he suggested, just as the Senator has, discussing the winter plan to see if there was capacity there to support GPs. To be fair to the Minister as well, I only sprang this on him yesterday. The Senator was very rapid in tabling the Commencement matter, so I have not had the space to have that conversation with the Minister and with my elected representatives from the area who were present the other night. They heard about the very concerning effects this is having on the protection of females within the practices and the out-of-hours services, and the pressure it is putting them under. There is also the health and safety piece but we also have to ensure we can maintain people within the practices and attract people into the practices in the area.

I am confident we will meet the Minister, Deputy Donnelly. We are still trying to figure out his availability. There may even be tonight after the voting block. I am not saying this is definite but we are looking for that space. The Minister has talked to me about the winter plan. There are two parts in this conversation. There is the Ballinasloe set and there is the Portumna piece. The latter is on three borders and the country boundaries of Clare, Tipperary and Galway. To be fair to those in Ballinasloe, they were never part of that arrangement and I do not think they wish to be part of it either, because that would mean Westdoc would be covering from Roscommon town all the way up to Portumna and to Lawrencetown. That is not feasible either if we are to ensure a proper delivery of a Westdoc service. We have a Portumna piece but we also have the creation of a new GP cell in Ballinasloe. When we get to meet the Minister, it is to be hoped we will be able to articulate, as the Senator has put eloquently, the need for representation for our GPs but also the need for the delivery of support in the area.