Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour)
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198. To ask the Minister for Health if he is aware of the shortage of GPs in Cork who perform vasectomies; his Department’s plan to ensure that individuals will not be forced to pay privately to access this care; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27436/24]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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GPs are private practitioners, most of whom hold a GMS contract with the HSE for the provision of GP services without charge to medical card and GP visit card holders. Under the terms of the current GMS contract, GPs are required to provide eligible patients with ''all proper and necessary treatment of a kind usually undertaken by a general practitioner and not requiring special skill or experience of a degree or kind which general practitioners cannot reasonably be expected to possess". Vasectomy services for men are not routinely provided by GPs nor is there a special items of service for vasectomies provided for under the GMS contract.

However, there local arrangements in some areas throughout the country with GPs for the provision of vasectomy services to GMS patients. In relation to the GP provision of vasectomy services for GMS patients in Cork, as this is a service matter, I have asked the Health Service Executive to respond to the Deputy directly on this matter, as soon as possible.