Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 16 December 2021

Public Accounts Committee

2020 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 38 - Health

9:30 am

Mr. Robert Watt:

I do not think one can separate out spending to improve capacity within the system and the number of people employed in community settings or improvements in GP settings. I do not think one can separate improvements to the overall health budget and say they are Sláintecare because in effect, I see now the overall reforms and enhancements. Over the past number of years, I believe €2 billion to €3 billion has ultimately been allocated to measures that could be labelled as "Sláintecare". Some of the aspects of Sláintecare include enhanced public capacity. I mentioned the increase in staffing in reply to Deputy O'Connor's question. We have increased the staffing very dramatically. Much of that is Sláintecare-related. We increased the number of ICU beds by 800. These are all aspects around enhancing capacity. Then, there are some of the eGovernment initiatives. It is something we can reflect upon and come back to because the question of how much we are actually going to earmark for it is an interesting one.

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