Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As I understand it, since the start of the year, the number of people working in our public health service has increased by 5,000, a pretty big increase in any given year. This comprises approximately 800 extra nurses and midwives, as well as 800 extra doctors. We now have more doctors and more consultants working in our public health service than ever before. Up to 1,600 therapists and allied health professionals have also been recruited. It is true that there may be people on different grades and different contracts. Overall, however, the healthcare workforce has increased considerably in the past couple of months.

On the budget, provision has been made to hire approximately 8,000 additional healthcare staff. It is an ambitious target but it is time to be ambitious quite frankly when it comes to scaling up our health service. It is one that the Government is committed to achieving. The funding is there. The Government needs to ensure that we really drive the HSE to make sure that commitment is honoured.

See this speech in context