Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising what is such an important issue. I know the Minister for Health, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, and the HSE are determined to reinstate all of the non-Covid healthcare in as full a form as possible as quickly as they possibly can. A significant amount of progress has been made in that regard.

On the overall budget position for the Department of Health and the HSE, as the Deputy knows, we provided an extra €4 billion in budget 2021 for health. Broadly speaking, that was split into two halves with about half of it for new measures and the protection of existing levels of service. The other half of around €2 billion, which was directly related to the cost of Covid, included the testing and tracing system, the vaccination programme, personal protective equipment, PPE, etc.

I had a meeting earlier this week with the Minister for Health, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, and his team. It was a mid-year review on how things are going across health and on implementing all of the key objectives we set in the budget last year. While Covid has had an enormous impact - and that has been compounded by the cyberattack - a lot of progress is being made on the reform side. For example, the Department of Health and the HSE are significantly increasing the permanent bed capacity in our public health system, which was a significant element of the funding we provided in budget 2021 for new measures. We provided about €1.25 billion for a significant implementation of Sláintecare and they are making a lot of progress in that regard, notwithstanding the enormous challenges they have faced. They are determined to reinstate non-Covid healthcare as quickly as possible. We also discussed their progress in the ambitious recruitment programme we have in place across health. For example, we gave sanction for an increase in the workforce across health from pre-Covid levels to the end of 2021 of in the region of 16,000 extra people, which is a massive investment by the State to improve our health system into the future.

We have to learn the lessons from Covid and we need to implement Sláintecare, which is the future. The Government is committed to it and the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, and his team have been given the resources to make progress. I look forward to further discussions during the Estimates process.