Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

There is a credibility problem, however, with what he is saying. In 2015, we had 386,000 people on waiting lists and there was a budget increase in 2016 of about €1 billion. In that year, the highest number of people on trolleys on a single day was 330. The following year, despite the increase, we had 490,000 people on waiting lists and a high point of 470 people waiting on trolleys on a single day. We had about another €1 billion spent, yet in 2017, despite supposedly covering demographics, we are up to 685,000 on waiting lists, which is a spectacular increase. Today, as we speak, the figure for people waiting on trolleys happens to be 470, exactly the same as it was in November 2016.

3 o’clock

Can we believe what the Minister just said when all the indications are that the allocations he is making for health, although being flagged as big increases, are not even keeping pace with demographics, never mind actually delivering new services?

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