On my behalf and that of the Government and the people of Ireland, I convey heartfelt condolences to the family of Kim Damti in Ireland and Israel. This was an horrific, indiscriminate, random and barbarous attack on the Israeli people resulting in up to 1,300 people, including Kim, losing their lives. Anyone looking at the photograph of Kim in the media in recent days will have been struck by the radiance and energy in her expression. She was a young 22-year-old with her full life ahead of her only for it to be cut down in a barbaric way. Our thoughts remain, in particular, with her family at this very sad moment.

Ní aontaím leis an méid a bhí le rá ag an Teachta ó thaobh cúrsaí sláinte na tíre. Níl aon amhras ach go bhfuil infheistíocht ollmhór - suas le €7.5 billiún - curtha isteach againn sna seirbhísí ó thosaigh an Rialtas seo. Tá méadú an-mhór le feiscint sna seirbhísí sláinte de bharr na hinfheistíochta sin.

I thank the Deputy for the question but do not agree with his assessment and assertions in respect of the health service and the Government's commitment to and prioritisation of health. Disability has transferred to the Department of Children, Equality Disability, Integration and Youth, which takes away some of the allocation that would have been in the health budget. That allocation has now gone over to that other Department. More fundamentally, more than €7 billion in additional funding has been allocated to the health service since 2020. That has resulted in an expansion of services across the board. There has been an expansion in capacity across the board. The funding this year will include staffing for new hospitals, ICUs, and community beds. It includes staffing for the six surgical hubs. It includes investments in our workforce, such as advanced practice, more college and training places and more hospital consultants. We will continue to invest in our community services through funding for mental health services, social inclusion measures and services for older people. We have recruited up to 22,000 extra people to the health service since this Government was formed. We have delivered record levels of investment in our health service.

We have also cut costs for patients across the board, to which the Deputy did not refer at all. We have removed inpatient hospital charges. We have had the biggest expansion of access to free GP care in the history of the State. It is available now to half a million more people. To put that in context, up to 60% of our population now hold a GP card or medical card. We have reduced the cost of the drug payment scheme. We have funded diagnostic scans for patients. We have introduced free contraception for women up to the age of 31. We are now publicly funding assisted human reproduction, including IVF. We have agreed a new consultant contract, with more 800 consultants already signed up. There has been a 22% reduction in the number of patients on waiting lists who are exceeding the Sláintecare waiting time targets since the Covid-19-related peak. We have, in just the past two years, built up an entirely new community health service, including primary care, chronic disease management, older person services and ambulance services. As I have said, we have added 22,000 new staff since 2020. We have increased our hospital bed capacity by more than 1,000 in the same timeframe.

We have expanded our ICU bed capacity. It is not just beds, of course. It is the multidisciplinary teams that go with that. We have built a network of new primary care centres around the country. This level of investment is helping the health sector to meet the increasing levels of demand it is meeting. We now have one of the highest life expectancies in the European Union. Our survival rates for cancer, stroke, infant mortality and heart disease have hugely improved and our outcomes clearly show that our health service is delivering quality care across hospitals all over the country. We are-----

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