John Brassil (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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359. To ask the Minister for Health the number of new and additional general practitioner training places which will come on stream in 2017. [40615/16]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The Programme for Partnership Government commits to increasing the number of GP training places by 100 over the next five years to 259 places annually. In July of this year, the GP training intake increased from 157 to 172 places and I am anxious to achieve further increases in future years.

One of the priority actions contained in the HSE's National Service Plan 2017, which was published yesterday (14 December), is to finalise the Service Level Agreement between the HSE and the Irish College of General Practitioners on the new training programme for GPs which will oversee the transfer of GP training to the College. It is expected that this will allow for further increases in training places, with the new programme agreed with the ICGP leading to a reformed training environment. The Service Plan also indicates that the number of GP training places will increase in 2017 to 187 places.