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

I thank the Deputy. I acknowledge the simple fact that our public health service is too small for a population of 5 million people, which is also an ageing population. That is not the only reason but one of the reasons too many people have to wait too long for the health care they need. I fully acknowledge that.

The Deputy asked me if I have the stomach to reverse the cuts to our health service. I have more than the stomach for it. That is exactly what I have been doing during my time in government. From the moment it became possible, around 2014 or 2015 when the country exited the IMF bailout programme, we have expanded and invested in our health service. The Deputy does not need to take my word for it. He can check out the report, Health in Ireland: Key Trends 2021, which was published the other day. It will tell him exactly what has been happening in our health service over the past couple of years.

In 2015, I took the decision to reverse the policy of reducing the number of beds in our health service. Every year since 2015, we have seen an increase in the number of hospital beds in Ireland. At a time when most countries are reducing the number of beds, we have been increasing them. That is why we are getting closer every year to the OECD average the Deputy mentioned. We have 900 more beds today than we had before the pandemic began and roughly 2,000 more beds than we had in 2015.

The report to which I referred also shows that there are 44% more doctors in our public service today than there were ten years ago. How many people know that? It is a fact. There are 44% more doctors working in our public health service now than there were ten years ago. There is a health budget of €22 billion a year, the highest ever on a per capitabasis.

There has been expansion in terms of making healthcare more affordable. For example, in the past couple of years, we have reduced prescription charges for those with medical cards as well as those who do not. We have introduced free GP care for children aged under six on a universal basis. We are bringing in free contraception later in the year. This is very much a programme that is being pursued by the Government.

We have 1,700 more nurses than we had at the beginning of the pandemic. We have a struggle recruiting and retaining staff, as does almost every health service in the world, but it is not a surprise that we should have to deal with that when we are expanding so fast. Many more posts are being created and many more beds are being added to the system. New hospitals are being built all of the time. We are making a lot of progress in that regard. We have a lot more to do, and I acknowledge that.

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