Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I agree with the Deputy that there is probably nothing to be served by going back over this matter. It was a fairly well ventilated budget discussion last year.

The settlement this year is significant, with €1.5 billion for ELS this year, €1.2 billion for next year and €900 million for one-off to core. Critically, as well as that, there is now a very clear workforce allocation in terms of numbers and pay, which will help for next year. If I could just make one quick point, the embargo had nothing to do with the ELS settlement. The embargo was because last year the HSE was funded to hire about 6,000 staff. It hired 8,000 and it was not showing any signs of slowing down. We signalled through the year that it had to stop with the accelerated hiring and unfortunately it did not happen. We were left with no choice other than to press stop. Last year was the biggest year of hiring in the 20 years that the HSE has existed. Regardless of any settlement for this year, the point is last year they hired 2,000 staff that they had no funding for.