Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I echo the comments of my colleagues. The report we got from the Parliamentary Budget Office in regard to the €190 million showed that the adjustments would be something like €80 million for health, similar for education, €12 million for the justice area and €4 million for the local authorities.

11 o’clock

Thus, for a relatively small measure in the context of the total budget we could begin to address this problem.

I will return to a point made by the last delegation I met. They were representing the hospital consultants. They made a powerful case by saying the people recruited after 2011 had a 57% cut in salary. Moreover, there was a 25% difference over nine years, even with some of the more recent changes. The example I was given compared Ireland with countries like Sweden and Norway. On the basis of the level of consultants per capitaIreland compares in an adverse way. For example, there was no mention from the Minister about the acute beds in the budget speech or the type of staffing led by consultant doctors that we need. We have only nine paediatric emergency consultants in the country, while the profession and the health sector estimate that we need something like 30 consultants. We are spending approximately €114 million per year on agency doctors when it would only cost €20 million to introduce pay equality. The Minister seems to have his priorities wrong in this area. If we want to have a vibrant well-led health sector, then we need to expedite this process in the coming year or so.

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