Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising those issues. The House has spent the past hour and a half talking about healthcare. Deputy Donnelly was here - Deputy Calleary is now filling in for him, according to the Ceann Comhairle - asking the relevant questions.

The Deputy asked what we are doing to recruit consultants. We have active recruitment campaigns both at home and abroad. We are increasing the number of training places to ensure that we can produce more homegrown consultants. There is a worldwide shortage of consultant psychologists and psychiatrists. We are actively competing to ensure that we fill vacant posts. I answered questions last week about the specific shortages of staff in the area of child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, particularly in the south east. There is real urgency in Government dealing with those recruitment challenges.

As the Taoiseach reminded the House this week, the challenges we face in healthcare are not solely financial. We are spending significantly more on healthcare than we have ever done, but certain areas are under pressure with waiting lists that are far too long, even though in many areas waiting lists are now shortening. We will continue to spend the resources we need to fill those gaps to provide a basic and good high-quality level of healthcare provision to people. In specific areas we have challenges in getting the skill sets that we need. We need to increase the training spaces in those areas to ensure we can fill those gaps domestically.

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