Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 27 June 2019

Public Accounts Committee

Health Service Executive Financial Statements 2018
2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 38 - Department of Health
Chapter 16 - Control of Private Patient Activity in Acute Public Hospitals

9:00 am

Mr. Paul Reid:

I will touch briefly on some of the comments Deputy Cullinane has made and I will answer his specific question. He mentioned that there has been an extra budget allocation for the past five or six years and the situation with waiting times has not got much better. I do not disagree with the Deputy but that is factual. The issue of waiting times is a priority for me in working with the system. Directing extra funds at the problem has not actually addressed the issue. I think that is a challenge for all of us. I know Deputy Cullinane was involved in the development of Sláintecare, as was the whole Oireachtas. The challenge for all of us is that extra money has been put in for the last five or six years but that has not worked. We have to do something different and I am committed to doing that. I want us to look at the health system, where we fund it and how we address the service needs of the patients we are serving in a much better and different way. Sláintecare does set out a road map for doing that. However, we have to start utilising our budgets in a different way.