Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome everyone and I notice our guests are here in force, both virtually and physically, which is a sign that Covid-19, in particular, has moved on.

What I have to say concerns budgets. To be fair to the Government, we certainly have an input of funding from it that depicts a first-class health service. Some would say that, although we are investing €21 billion in the health service, we are getting a Third World service. I understand and accept health is a massive area and cannot be easy to manage. I am directing this question to Mr. Watt, but if we take what Mr. Reid has said in response to the Chairman’s query, that we have over-75s going to accident and emergency departments and having to wait 14 hours, that would probably be reflective of the home care package support scheme not working. The Government, in fairness, as I have said, has allocated an extra 1 million hours to the home care support scheme but there is no delivery on those hours. We are now seeing the results of that in our accident and emergency departments.

Mr. Watt is top dog now. What specific actions has he taken to ensure that vast allocation of funds results in the delivery of a First World health service?