Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister for Thursdays to the Chamber. I am grateful to the Ceann Comhairle for selecting this issue. I am joined by Deputy Eugene Murphy as my question also relates to Roscommon and County Galway. I understand that HSE management in CHO 2 in Galway, Mayo and Roscommon are planning a range of curtailments of services, including the cancellation of 20 agency staff contracts and the delaying of filling 50 positions which were committed to across a range of primary care services. That delay will last until the end of 2019 or 2020. There are extraordinary delays in a range of services across the region, including occupational therapy, dentistry and orthodontistry, dietetics and physiotherapy. The notion that positions that were promised and have been advertised will not be filled until 2020 is unacceptable and will only add to the delays and the pressure that people on those waiting lists are under.

I also understand that no maternity leave or sick leave replacements will be put in place for anyone who goes out between now and the end of the year. This is because HSE officials are curtailing and trying to manage a budget, which is one of the lowest in the CHO regions, because they are utterly frustrated in trying to engage with the Department regarding a base month on which their budget should be assessed. It seems the Department randomly assesses a month in the year as a base month to establish the budget. This model does not work and particularly does not serve the people of CHO 2, whom we represent, well at all.

I need an assurance from the Minister of State that the 20 agency staff will remain in place, that the 50 positions that have been approved to be filled and which are needed in communities in Mayo, Galway and Roscommon will be filled, and that people will get to work on addressing the waiting lists. If not, are we destined to pay for the failures regarding the national children's hospital through a lack of resources for CHO 2 to allow it to do its work at primary care level?

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