GPs can still sign up to under-sixes scheme, say ministers

Ahead of today’s deadline for family doctors to sign up to free care for under-sixes, Health Minister Leo Varadkar and his junior minister Kathleen Lynch yesterday wrote to GPs to clarify issues around the scheme and tell those who have not signed the contract that it is not too late to do so.

In the correspondence, the minister said they now have a “critical mass” of GPs who have signed up and the registration of children by their parents will begin shortly ahead of the scheme’s commencement in July.

“Registration will be a simple online process and will be easier than booking an airline ticket,” Mr Varadkar and Ms Lynch wrote.