Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I also welcome the restoration of the Northern Ireland Executive. The opening remarks of both Michelle O’Neill and Emma Little-Pengelly were very inclusive. I think we wish them all the best in their work. I also want to wish a special best of luck to Andrew Muir, a friend of mine who is the first openly gay Minister, as the new Minister for Agriculture. I know he has already set to work. It is important that this House does wish them the best in their work.

I want to raise the Irish Independent story which has been covering the shortages of GPs, particularly in rural areas. This is something I have raised before. It is an ongoing issue. In my own local area in north Wexford, one of the fastest growing areas in the country, one of the GP practices no longer takes anyone new onto its practice lists.Many of those who have moved into the north Wexford area have to keep their GP links wherever their GPs were originally. I am conscious, and it is very welcome, that the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, is ramping up the number of GP training places this year to 350, which is up 35% on last year, and that the Government has increased significantly the number of places in undergraduate medicine that are available, but they will take a bit of time to come through the system. We need to look at the graduate medicine programme and perhaps some ways whereby, in the funding of students who go through that, if they enter into GP practice, the State will cover the costs of their training on the graduate medical programme. I would like a debate about the question of general practice and its availability. This is critical. Ours is a growing country, but it is important that everybody has access to his or her local GP.