Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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917. To ask the Minister for Health the total number of general practitioners currently employed throughout the health services; the extent to which this compares with international norms per thousand of the population; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [8428/22]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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GPs are self-employed private practitioners. While no central register exists specifically for GPs working in Ireland, all doctors in practice in Ireland must be registered with the Medical Council.  As of January 2022, there are 4,319 doctors on the Medical Council's Specialist Register in the speciality of General Practice. However, holding registration does not necessarily mean that a medical practitioner is active in general practice.  The ICGP estimates that there were 3,466 GPs working in the State in 2021.

Under the GMS scheme, the HSE contracts GPs to provide medical services without charge to medical card and GP visit card holders. Currently 2,539 GPs hold GMS contracts. Many GPs also hold contracts with the HSE to provide services under other state schemes, e.g. the Primary Childhood Immunisation Programme, National Cancer Screening Service, Methadone Treatment Scheme etc. There are a further 533 GPs without GMS contracts who hold other such contracts with the HSE, bringing the total number of GPs contracted by the HSE at present to 3,072.  

Eurostat, the statistical service of the European Union, provides data on the number of doctors in various medical specialties over time and across European countries. For 2019, the latest available data, it reports 0.822 doctors classified as general practitioners per 1,000 inhabitants in the State, above the mean of 0.797 per 1,000 inhabitants across all reporting countries. Further information is available through the Eurostat website.