Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge that over the past six months, in particular, some public services have been under huge pressure and some have simply not been able to operate because of the extraordinary circumstances we are all living through. The numbers speak for themselves, however. The number of public servants has increased significantly and across the board, including in our health service, where we have well over 120,000 people working. The winter plan we unveiled will involve additional recruitment. This year alone, we are spending an extra €3 billion on health because we have to do so and it is the right thing to do. We are determined to ensure that we fund our health service properly for next year, not just to deal with the pandemic but also to deal once and for all with the deep-rooted structural problems in the health service and ensure it has the capacity, both in physical infrastructure, such as beds, and in the people needed to run the services. We are determined to do that.

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