00:00 Minister Butler I'm going to raise an issue with you because you will have
00:05 been requested to meet with the community in Cairndonna and Donegal
00:10 and they have lost the day services in their community hospital now and it
00:16 really is unacceptable rather than upgrade the facilities they've
00:19 relocated it to another location. It's caused real dismay there was a packed
00:24 public meeting in recent times and on a cross-party basis we're asking that you
00:29 would meet with the community group and find a solution and I say that now
00:32 because Deputy David Cullinan who drafted this motion has rightly put all
00:39 of the services be it GP, pharmacy, community primary services together as a
00:46 solution to what we're seeing and you will know this that's I've never seen
00:51 the scale in all my times in politics the amount of people who can't get a
00:55 face-to-face appointment with their GP they're struggling to get it there are
00:59 people who cannot register with the GP service in their local community and
01:05 it's at a level that I've never seen and it's right across I can only speak with
01:09 authority about North Donegal right across North Donegal we were hearing
01:13 from our constituents that they just can't get that appointment there's huge
01:18 frustration and there's no doubt the capacity just isn't there and so we need
01:23 to lean on community services we need to lean on we have a very strong pharmacy
01:28 service in Donegal we need to learn lean on that. The programme for government
01:32 recognises the importance of expanding primary and community care one important
01:36 commitment is to strengthen general practice and to increase the number of
01:39 GPs working through the country to accomplish this. The government has
01:43 increased the attractiveness of working as a GP by significantly increasing
01:47 investment in general practice in recent years. The 2019 agreement included over
01:52 211 million euro in additional investment for general practice
01:56 providing for an almost 50% increase in capitation payment rates for GPs and a
02:02 10% increase in rural practice supports. Improvements to GP maternity and
02:06 paternity leave arrangements were also made and a support for practices in
02:10 urban areas of deprivation was introduced.
