As Gorey Continues to Grow, Its Services Need to Grow With It

Newsflash:

Plans for a long-awaited Primary Care Centre for Gorey, Co. Wexford are finally set to come to fruition as contracts are set to be signed in September.

This comes after a preferred site for the centre has been identified by the HSE after years of delays. The HSE are expected to host a contract signing with the suitable tenderer this month.🎶🎶🎶🎶

I have been living on the east coast since arriving from Kerry in 1967, and during those years I have noticed huge changes in population.

The census figures show that the population of Gorey was 2,858 in 1966, rising to 3,024 in 1971 and 3,554 in 1981. Everyone knew everyone else in this small rural market town, with some lovely traditional family businesses.

I got my hair cut in Halfords. You went in and waited for Noel to emerge from their kitchen. They were established in 1923. Funges was there since 1927 and was always a lovely, friendly family shop. Mylie Doyle’s, that little gem of a shop, opened in 1967. I bought all my clothes from that gentleman, Michael Leacey, trading on Gorey’s Main Street.

And then we had Lar Murphy’s, with their Main Street petrol pumps, who had been trading there since 1940. Their restaurant on Main Street is still a lovely, friendly hub.

And then we had that focal social point in Gret Doran’s Railway Bar, where we met after performing in plays in Gorey. It was such a welcoming place.

I remember going into O’Doherty’s crowded waiting room in Charlotte Row. There was great banter, buzzing conversations and few complaints. Nowadays, it is so different. You ring up a doctor’s surgery, make an appointment, go into the waiting room and watch everyone staring at their phones, actively avoiding interaction with other patients.

That was then, but Gorey was, and is still, changing rapidly.

By 2006, the population of Gorey town was 7,293, rising to 9,114 in 2011. The latest Census, in 2022, recorded a population of about 11,600, an increase of almost 18% in just six years. Wexford County Council’s development plan projects continued growth, and those figures do not capture the much wider rural and coastal hinterland that also relies on Gorey for services.

The scale of house building is also stark. The County Development Plan provided for 985 additional housing units in Gorey between 2021 and 2027, and development continues across the town. All these people will need services such as school places and health services.

While we have this huge increase in population, the town lacks some vital road links to main arteries to relieve traffic congestion. We have had many promises, but the town is choked with traffic for much of the year, with the summer season and school times seeing gridlock every day.

I remember being sick a few times and going into Dr O Dohertys waiting room in Charlotte Row. There was great banter, buzzing conversations and few complaints. Nowadays it is so different when you ring up a doctor’s surgery, make an appointment, go into the waiting room and watch everyone staring at their phones actively avoiding interaction with other patients.

I can also remember having back trouble and being treated by Dr Conal O Doherty in Gorey District hospital. He had set up practice in Gorey town in 1952,

Gorey District Hospital was built in 1940. It was built on the site of the former Gorey Workhouse (dating back to 1842) to replace an older fever hospital. This was a medical hub with a maternity unit and most children from the town and surrounding north Wexford / South Wicklow area were born there.

Gorey town urgently needs the long-promised, larger, purpose-built Primary Care Centre. This is not a criticism of the existing medical centres or GP practices in Gorey, which provide an excellent and much-needed service to the town and surrounding area. The issue is not the quality of the services we already have; it is the scale and range of health infrastructure available to a town that has grown so quickly.

What Gorey now needs, in addition to its existing GP and medical services, is a larger HSE Primary Care Centre capable of bringing together a much wider range of community health services in one location — services such as physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, dietetics, dental care, psychology and mental health services, public health nursing and chronic disease management.

Gorey is the obvious location for such a community care centre for North Wexford, serving Gorey town and its huge rural and coastal hinterland from Ballymoney, Castletown and Courtown, and on down the coast to Ballygarrett. As I said at the outset, the population has increased substantially, but the supporting health infrastructure has most certainly not kept pace.

When I am out on my daily walk, health services are a constant topic of discussion, particularly among newly arrived people. I am hearing that many people cannot get a doctor, dentist or mental health service and must travel to Dublin or surrounding towns for care. This is not good enough in boom town Gorey, in prosperous Ireland in 2026.

A friend of mine had a heart condition and had to travel to Arklow for post-operative care. Another had to bring a child to Enniscorthy for an assessment. This is not good enough for a town of Gorey’s size and rate of growth. Gorey is now comparable in size to Enniscorthy and Arklow and has been growing much faster. We need more of these services available locally so that people who need care do not have to travel by bus, train or taxi to other towns. We deserve and need a centre locally.

I remember reading in the Gorey Guardian many years ago, in 2010, that we were going to get a Primary Care Centre. Sixteen years have elapsed and not a sod has been turned. The previous procurement process ultimately collapsed in 2024. A new tender process was launched, with Stage 2 advertised in late 2025, but as I write in 2026 Gorey is still waiting.

Gorey already has established primary care services at The Avenue and Conal House on St Michael’s Road. Again, this is not about replacing or criticising those services. What is planned is different in scale: the current HSE tender is for a much larger centre to accommodate HSE services, Tusla and the National Ambulance Service, as well as space for GPs. That is the kind of health infrastructure a town of Gorey’s size now needs.

If a new centre was deemed necessary in 2010, it is needed now more than ever. Gorey’s population has grown enormously in the intervening years, and the town continues to expand.

The contrast with Arklow is striking. Its purpose-built Primary Care Centre brings together a wide range of services including public health nursing, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, dietetics, psychology, podiatry and chiropody, dental services, social work, speech and language therapy, mental health services and children’s disability services.

Enniscorthy also has a purpose-built Primary Care Centre bringing together a multidisciplinary range of primary care, mental health, older-person and other community services. It is also home to an integrated cardiology service and community cardiac rehabilitation programme.

These are the types of community health services that a growing population should be able to access close to home. Gorey should not be left behind.

We need action and building now, and no more words and empty promises. Let the next photo shoot by our local politicians be a sod-turning ceremony for Gorey Primary Care Centre.

We don’t need to languish any further in HSE and political bureaucracy.

Build the centre now.