David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Those working in our healthcare system have had an horrendous 19 months in 2020 and 2021. I commend the heroics of those working on the front line in healthcare and those who supported them in ensuring we navigated our way through a very difficult time. The sad reality is it took a global pandemic for the Government to realise we needed major investment in health and major reforms in how we do healthcare in the State.

Budget 2022 is a big let-down for healthcare workers and patients. Today 900,000 people are on some form of health waiting list, with 200,000 of those waiting for more than 18 months. Some 100,000 are children, with 31,000 children waiting more than 18 months. I visited hospitals in Sligo, Cork and Limerick in recent weeks. On Friday I will be in Galway. I am hearing the same story: emergency departments are overflowing, attendances have increased, and the trolley count has increased, with more than 500 people on trolleys yesterday.

The Government has failed to realise the scale of the challenge. It has allocated an additional €311 million for new measures. Of course, the Government, as it did with mental health, has tried to repackage this as €1 billion, but €700 million of that was standing-still money to pay for pensions, salaries and carry-over measures. It is to provide the same level of service without any additional capacity. The additional spend on health is €311 million. Let us consider the scale of the challenge and what is needed and then look at the detail. Not a single additional inpatient acute bed, over and above what was previously committed to, was provided for in this budget. There is not one single additional community bed either. What was committed to last year is in this budget for next year.

The provisions relating to staff have again been repackaged from last year. There was a commitment for 14,500 additional staff. It seems about 7,000 will be recruited and the rest will come next year, which is fair enough. However, we are seeing a repackaging in this budget of almost all the measures the Minister was not able to deliver last year. On diagnostic capacity, there is more money for the private sector with no investment in the public capacity. Surgical theatre space is a real difficulty for consultants and nurses, and again there is no investment.

When I last debated waiting lists with the Minister, he talked about Sarah from his constituency in County Wicklow - a child with scoliosis. Yesterday, we heard of Adam and the Minister told us this issue has now been addressed and that he figured out what the problem was. However, it has not been figured out. I said to him at that time there are many more Sarahs. Some 31,000 children have been waiting more than 18 months for treatment. Some of those are children in pain. We all heard the heartbreaking story from Adam's own lips and from his parents, and it is absolutely unacceptable. Spending an additional €311 million on healthcare when we have 900,000 people waiting for some form of health treatment is absolutely miserly and unacceptable.

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