Aisling Dolan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, to the House to talk about the Health (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2024.

The rent-a-room relief scheme is crucial. That programme has been brought in for people to have additional income, of course, and to be able to give a space to others. I see it in my home town. Nurses and doctors who come to work in Portiuncula Hospital for six-month stints find it impossible to find accommodation. At a basic level, I do not know if the Minister is aware that the Aircoach service from Dublin to Galway was removed some time ago. The removal of the 20 and X20 service, which was an hourly transport service from Galway to places like Ballinasloe, was removed. Only a little while ago, nurses could not make their morning shifts at 7.45 a.m. The challenges associated with not having accommodation mean that more people are relying on transport. This Bill can give additional accommodation. It can help to support income in towns like Roscommon, which has a university hospital. It is so important. The scheme will be in place when the Bill is passed. What is the situation for people whose cards have been removed in the past 24 months? I refer to those who indicated, when they submitted assessments, that they were looking at the rent-a-room relief scheme. The Minister might wish to comment on that.

The community pharmacy provision is fantastic. I am delighted to see it. We expanded the role during Covid. Of course, there were many difficult things that we had to deal with, but necessity was the mother of invention in ensuring that the community pharmacies were able to deliver, develop and protect people. They were able to deliver vaccines. It was crucial. We have really skilled people. Anyone who comes through pharmacy has an amazing training qualification. It is so diligent and robust.

I suppose I would like to see more pharmacists coming through in the west of Ireland. The Minister will probably be aware that the University of Galway is looking at a course for its proposed school of pharmacy, which would be the very first school of pharmacy in the west of Ireland. Maybe we can look at supporting the roll-out of that course for graduate intake in September 2025. I do not know if the Department is reviewing how we can support the development of these courses but placements will be important in this. I am sure there are placements in community pharmacies. The Minister might comment on how we can make sure we have more skilled people coming through. We have an opportunity because the University of Galway has a course. The Minister spoke about the pharmacy regulator. It is important that we have the support of all of the groups that fall within the Department to be able to have those courses. As a Seanad spokesperson on further and higher education, I am conscious that so many areas cross so many Departments for us to be able to develop and deliver courses such as this. As the Minister will be aware, placements are part of that as well. It is about how we can support encouraging and making sure we have more skilled pharmacists coming through and coming into community pharmacies, particularly when the role is being expanded as the Minister foresees here. It is important for the Minister to be able to rely on this.

I might highlight another course as well. I am sure the Minister will be aware of it, but I am passionate about this one. I refer to the rural and remote GP graduate medical course that is being considered for Galway. Part of the selection criteria around that graduate course is GPs and graduates coming from rural backgrounds. That is part of the eligibility. In doing this course, they will have placements in hospitals in rural areas, such as Roscommon, Letterkenny and Castlebar. They will be able to do their training in those locations but we need to see that course getting rolled out. It is important that there is support from the Department of Health in terms of the placements within the hospitals and the primary care centres, maybe as a pilot stage within the west, within what formally was Saolta and is now the brand new regional executive of the west and north west. How will we see that happen?

This Bill, in its essence, is fantastic. I very much support the initiatives the Minister is encouraging to ensure there will be more prescriptions. He mentioned the oral contraceptive pill in particular. There will be a smaller number of conditions that community pharmacists will be looking at.

The challenge I see in towns and rural areas is the lack of GPs. We are looking at nurses coming in to support that as well. Sometimes it is merely a lack of skilled people who will consider working in more rural and smaller towns. It is an issue that does not apply to Ireland only. One will see that Canada has extremely isolated rural areas. The course I spoke of has seen success in the likes of Canada. I would appreciate the Minister's support through the Department of Health to see something like that being rolled out from September of next year.