Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 26 May 2022
Public Accounts Committee
2020 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 38 - Health (Resumed)
Health Service Executive: Financial Statements 2020
9:30 am
Mr. Robert Watt:
No. The substance involved a robust discussion. As Mr. Reid mentioned regarding the targets, there is an ambition to recruit 10,000 staff and the budget is based on that. The service plan provides for 5,500. A better approach to budgeting and planning in future would probably be a multi-annual approach to the recruitment and wage bill. It is probably too ambitious to have a point estimate for each year. It is probably best to state that we will recruit 15,000 over the next three years and money that is not spent this year can then be allocated to 2023, but there is still a commitment to increase the numbers.