Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-27
============================================================

Pádraig Rice (SD), Cork South-Central

It is three months since the Social Democrats' GP plan was unanimously passed by the Dáil, yet we are still waiting on the Government to progress any real reform of GP services. The strategic review of general practice was to conclude within nine months but it has now taken over three years. The minimal changes introduced in recent years fall far short. Take for example the social deprivation practice grant, which was reformed earlier this year. Under the new grant, none of the Dublin inner city practices in the Deep End Ireland group, which represents GPs working in the most disadvantaged communities, received the social deprivation grant. That includes Summerhill Family Practice. How can ending their grant funding be justified? Clearly, the new system is not working, yet the Minister for Health does not plan on doing anything about it until the end of the year, when there will be a look-back exercise. Why is the Minister waiting to look back when she knows there is a problem right now? Will the Taoiseach urgently ensure that all practices in socially deprived areas receive the grant that was designed to support them? Will he tell us exactly when the never-ending strategic review of general practice will be finished?

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-05-27/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:04+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-27