{"id":406640,"date":"2026-04-19T12:52:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T12:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/406640\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T12:52:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T12:52:08","slug":"kildare-north-one-of-the-hardest-places-in-ireland-in-which-to-get-a-gp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/406640\/","title":{"rendered":"Kildare North ‘one of the hardest places in Ireland in which to get a GP’"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Kildare<\/a> North TD has told the D\u00e1il that the north of the county \u201cis one of the hardest places in Ireland in which to get a GP.\u201d<\/p>\n

Deputy Joe Neville (FG) was speaking when ‘Ceisteanna ar Pholasa\u00ed n\u00f3 ar Reachta\u00edocht – Questions on Policy or Legislation’ came before the House on Wednesday, April 15 last.<\/p>\n

Deputy Neville said: \u201cI note the Minister is here. As the House knows, there is an urgent need to address the issue of GP access across Ireland.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast night, I spoke on the Critical Infrastructure Bill. We need to view GP care as critical infrastructure in its way and incentivise its creation and extension.<\/p>\n

\u201cI see this in my area of\u00a0Kildare\u00a0North, which is one of the hardest places in Ireland in which to get a GP, where people move into the county from other areas and are stuck using the GP from those areas before they can access new ones in north\u00a0Kildare.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have met doctors in my constituency who want to extend their practices and others who want to set up new practices, but we need to make it financially feasible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Deputy Neville called on the government to put in place a refundable tax credit in the upcoming budget to go towards set-up costs or extension costs for premises, medical equipment and digital systems \u201cto assist in setting up and extending GP services.\u201d<\/p>\n

Responding to Deputy Neville, Minister for Health, Deputy Jennifer Carroll MacNeill stated that the State currently supports GP practices \u201cto the tune of approximately \u20ac1bn per year.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever\u201d, she conceded, \u201cwe need more.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ NEXT:\u00a0Plans for \u20ac27m solar farm in this Kildare region<\/a><\/p>\n

Deputy MacNeill told Deputy Neville that in his area of North Kildare \u2013 where there has been \u201cparticularly concentrated population growth at quick pace\u201d – more GP practices are needed.<\/p>\n

The Minister said she will discuss the idea of a refundable tax credit with the T\u00e1naiste and Minister for Finance.<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cWe need to look at every creative way to expand GP care. We are trying to recruit GPs to the HSE, but the State and private GP practices have a direct relationship – an important symbiosis – and we need to look at every lever we can use to increase GP capacity, either by extending or setting up new practices.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will discuss the Deputy’s suggestion of a refundable tax credit with the T\u00e1naiste and Minister for Finance for the upcoming budget.\u201d<\/p>\n

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ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Kildare North TD has told the D\u00e1il that the north of the county \u201cis one of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406641,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[15049,1523,103,61,60,178909,3770,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-406640","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-dail-eireann","9":"tag-government","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-joe-neville","14":"tag-kildare","15":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}