Free GP care for all sounds noble, but it could ruin what makes Irish healthcare great

Without a huge increase in GP numbers, Ireland's primary healthcare system risks replicating Britain's NHS, where unhurried, preventive, relationship-based care has been abandoned, and which has been paying the price in overcrowded waiting rooms and worsening outcomes ever since

The Irish College of General Practitioners has stated directly that universal free GP care is unachievable without a huge expansion in GP numbers.

I grew up in Britain with the NHS. For most of my adult life, a GP appointment meant 10 minutes — sometimes less — with a doctor who already had your name on a prescription pad. If you were lucky, you described your symptoms, got the script, and left. Blood pressure? Rarely checked unless you specifically ask. Weight? Not mentioned. Smoking? Perhaps a leaflet on the way out. Prevention was a luxury the system could not afford.

When I moved to Wexford, I discovered something different. My GP here listens. An appointment runs closer to 14 minutes — a figure confirmed by a 2021 cross-sectional study in BMC Primary Care, which found the Irish average at 13.7 minutes, nearly 50% longer than the UK's 9.2 minutes recorded in a landmark analysis of 28.5 million consultations across 67 countries.