Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As to whether the resources are enough, the budget provided for the biggest increase in health spending we have ever had. That would hold true even if one stripped out the Covid funding. What we are funding next year is very ambitious. We are funding the biggest increase in acute beds, ICU beds, community beds and workforce in a single year. I think we are pushing the limits of implementation, to be honest. We have sufficient resources in terms of funding in the budget. The real challenge now is that I, the Government, the Department of Health and the HSE work together on implementation. What has been laid out in the budget is very ambitious but, given the waiting lists and the needs of patients, we must be ambitious and try to push the implementation as far as we can. Step 1 was the formulation of the plan, much of which was informed by Sláintecare. Step 2 was to get the budget in place and step 3 will be implementation.

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