John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The motion mentions poorer outcomes for patients, safety and quality of patient care, standards of treatment, elderly patients and conditions that may jeopardise patient care. If one just arrived from a different country, walked into this Parliament and picked up the motion and read it, one would probably consider it to be quite reasonable if one did not know who was running the health system between 2000 and 2011 and what those people did when it came to health care budgets, particularly as it relates to directing money towards the patient. They are the same people who drafted the motion. Within our system, if one excludes general practitioners and other primary care services, the average figure for pay in all operating environments or units is between 70% and 90% of total costs. In acute hospitals pay accounts for more than 70%, and in disability services it is about 90%, making a rough average of 80% in those operating units. I dealt with pay in the Committee of Public Accounts a couple of years ago. Let us look at pay trends from 2002 onwards. The 2002 outturn pay figure for the health boards was €3.5 billion. By 2012 it had increased to €4.71 billion, a 35% increase. In voluntary hospitals, pay accounted for €1.13 billion in 2002, and by 2012 that figure had increased to €1.55 billion, a 37% increase. The collective trend is approximately 36%. That gives an idea of the increases during that ten-year period.

The HSE's annual financial statement shows that its basic pay increased by 24% between 2005 and 2011. The increases grew in the past six years, and in the last decade allowances increased by 22%; for example, night duty pay increased by 18%. Generally speaking, there were very substantial pay increases across the board. In the HSE's pay costs for management and administration, there was an increase of approximately 24% between 2005 and 2011. Those are the figures in the financial statements and the accrual accounts. Given that about 80% of the spend in the operating units goes towards pay and salaries, one comes to the conclusion that when the party that drafted this motion had control over the health system the directing of increases in the health budget towards the patient was not a priority. That statement is backed up by hard figures and facts. As everyone knows, when people get used to increases in their pay it is very difficult to reverse them; it is almost impossible. Health care workers deserve to be well paid. I am trying to point out that most of the new money injected into health care between 2002 and 2011 was not channelled towards essential services or to the front line or directly to the patient. When I read this motion, knowing that by 9 o'clock tomorrow evening the voices opposite will get louder and more accusatory and a little angrier, it is worth pointing out when the party opposite was in power it spent most of the extra money in health on pay, not on the patient. The facts prove that.

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