Former Health Minister Leo Varadkar said free GP care would overwhelm the system, but new figures from ESRI suggest otherwise.

According to the Economic and Social Research Institute the number of doctor visits in a free system would rise by 3.5%, or 700,000 trips annually.

They explain this by the fact that non-medical card patients tend to be healthier and that the time required to see a GP would deter excessive use of the system.

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