David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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628. To ask the Minister for Health the cost of increasing GP trainee places by 10%; and the number of places this would create. [28722/25]

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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To increase the number of GPs working in the country and thereby improve access to GP services, the annual intake of doctors into the GP training programme has been increased by approximately 80% from 2019 to 2024, with 350 new entrant training places made available from 2024.

Based on 2024 figures, the annual cost of one doctor on the GP training programme is approximately €110,000. Accordingly, the cost of increasing the number of GP training places by a further 35 places to 385 places would be approximately €3.85 million.

It is important to note that capacity to increase the number of GP trainees must be built through the health service, as for the first two years of training GP trainees rotate through a variety of hospital specialities. An increase in GP trainers may also be required, which would involve an additional cost to be determined. Expanding the number of places available for GP trainees may also carry other additional costs which cannot be quantified at this time.