General Practitioner Services
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-21
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Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (FG), Dún Laoghaire

Exactly, and it is a totally practical suggestion. We want to enable GPs to have their practice as quickly as possible. I have no view as to where they should practice necessarily. Of course, we would like to employ them into the HSE, but private practice is also so important. Whatever we can do to enable more GPs, it has come up again and again in this House, correctly, and I can point out all the new GPs that have been registered by the Medical Council, all of that work to clear the backlog of people looking to restore their practices and people looking to come to Ireland. If they do not have a place to work within the community that people can access, it is very challenging. I recall going to a GP practice. There was one or two in every big housing estate. It was a very natural thing and it was often a front room. Now it is a slightly different model, and that is true. There may be an opportunity to extend those premises. Just look at the changes we have made today, for example, in relation to planning permissions and so on and exemptions and what we are trying to do to encourage more and more use of space. This is a hugely important piece for any community.
I thank the Deputy for his suggestion. We will come back to it within the Department of Health but it is also an important budgetary matter for the Minister for Finance.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-04-21/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-21T01:01:08+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-21