Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for his question. All health systems across Europe and the world come under pressure in a pandemic. That applies through wave after wave in different countries. The acute hospital system, as the Deputy says, continues to be in a challenging position, particularly with the significant backlog of non-Covid care arising from the demand for Covid care in the early part of the year. The ransomware attack of 14 May exacerbated that, particularly in terms of the front line.

The Government has really moved on healthcare and the allocation of resources across the system. Budget 2021 saw an extra €4 billion added to the health budget. It is the largest budget increase in the history of the State. That funding signals how determined the Minister and the Government are to funding expansion and improvement across the board in our health and social care services. That is a 20% increase. Some €1.67 billion of that went towards Covid-related care supports, including the vaccination programme, but there was significant additional funding to address capacity issues and the deficits by funding more beds and employing more staff.

The €600 million winter initiative has made a significant difference to the capacity of the health service. Without it, we would have been in real trouble over the Christmas period. I am glad we took the initiative early last autumn to sanction that. Had it not been for that level of investment in home care packages, community diagnostics and acute capacity, we would have been in far greater difficulty during the winter period. Some €236 million in revenue and €40 million in capital expenditure was provided as part of the winter plan in budget 2021 to fund general acute beds on a permanent basis in our acute hospitals. This funding has provided an additional 834 general acute beds to the system over the number available on 1 January 2020. We need more information from 6 May but, because of the ransomware attack, it is not readily available. In addition, 73 sub-acute beds have been provided under the winter plan. Funding of €52 million was provided in budget 2021 to allow for 66 permanent critical care beds to be put in place to bring permanent baseline capacity to 321 by the end of 2021. Baseline capacity at the beginning of 2020 was 255. The HSE has advised that 41 of those 66 beds are staffed and open on a permanent basis, bringing the national total to 296. We want to get to 321.

The number of beds open on any day can fluctuate due to a variety of factors, including the use of surge capacity. The HSE also has capacity in the private sector arising from agreements with private hospitals on additional needs that will emerge. There have been real tangible gains on capacity increases.

See this speech in context