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

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue of Sláintecare and the Government's commitment to the reform of our public health service. I reassure the Deputy, the House and the Irish people that the Government remains absolutely committed to fundamental reform of our health service. We are committed to the implementation of Sláintecare, which was not a one-year or a two-year plan; it was a ten-year plan.

In making the decision last year to invest a record amount of funding into our health service, the Government made a step change in improving the capacity of our public health system with funding being provided including, for example, more than 1,000 beds to be added to our acute hospital system, a significant increase in our critical care beds, and the sanctioning of an increase in staff resources within the public health system for approximately 16,000 professionals, pre-Covid to the end of this year. There have been some delays in recruitment but several thousand additional staff are now working in the health service as a result of that investment.

We have provided more than 5 million hours of home care in the current year, 2021. Again, this was a significant increase. Discussions are under way in relation to a public-only consultant contract. This is an important reform in our health service. On the critical public health function, which everyone has a renewed appreciation of, we have approval for the first time in the history of this State for a consultant-led public health function in our country, including a doubling of resources across our public health teams. These are significant manifestations of the Government's commitment to Sláintecare backed up with real funding of approximately €1.25 billion in the budget last year for new measures. Additionally, in the recent implementation report on Sláintecare, some 97% of deliverables were either achieved or were on track. A small number were not and we acknowledge that.

The Deputy did not even mention the elephant in the room. We have had 18 months of living with Covid-19, a global pandemic that has turned our health service upside down. The Deputy did not believe it was even worthy of a mention. Our front-line healthcare staff have been trying to get by, protect lives and save people. That is what they have been focused on. Despite all that, we have brought about significant and transformative change in our health system during that time by way of the investment made in the public health service. We are committed to working towards universal access, free at the point of delivery, in our health and social care system. We made a decisive step in that direct in budget 2021. I am now in discussion with the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, as part of the Estimates process for the upcoming budget.

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