Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday we announced a health budget of €23.4 billion for 2023. This represents an additional €1.1 billion in current expenditure and €117 million in capital expenditure. It includes over €250 million for new measures, bringing the core health funding to over €22.5 billion. It includes a once-off allocation of €757 million to deal with Covid-19 and its ongoing impact and the damage it has done to public health and our healthcare system. This investment shows the Government is fully committed to delivering on the vision of universal healthcare – a public healthcare system that provides everyone with affordable and high-quality care when they need it.

My focus in budget 2023, as it has been since I was appointed Minister for Health, is on improving affordability for patients, improving access to services and extending and improving services for patients. There is no doubt but that we are facing uncertain times this winter. As part of the wider Government plan to tackle cost-of-living pressures, I am introducing measures to improve the affordability of healthcare. I am happy to announce that budget 2023 has provided an extensive package in additional funding for new measures, as well as significant money for once-off measures. This funding will allow us to make GP care free for hundreds of thousands of extra people who are on, or below, the median income. It is a landmark move and will ensure more than half the population will have free access to GP care. We are abolishing inpatient charges for hospitals completely from April 2023. Charges for children have already been abolished in the past few weeks. Soon, adults will no longer face these charges, which can amount to €800 a year. I could not, as Minister for Health, stand over having debt collectors pursue patients for money that was technically owed for vital healthcare they received in our public hospitals. I would like to acknowledge the many groups, including the Irish Cancer Society in particular, that campaigned so hard and so well on this issue. We listened carefully and we have acted.

Another measure that is being introduced in this budget is the extension of free contraception scheme to cover women from 16 to 30 years of age. Women’s healthcare, as Deputies know, has been a priority for me, the Ministers of State and this Government since it came into office. We launched the first ever women’s healthcare plan earlier this year. Now, we are continuing to fund additional services into next year. We will deliver a human papillomavirus, HPV, catch-up programme to girls and boys at school and to women aged up to 25. The catch-up programme is due to commence before the end of this year. As I said some months ago, I am determined that women and couples can access IVF in our public health service. This will take time to phase in. I have secured funding of €10 million to support access to IVF in budget 2023. However, I want to be clear that this is just the beginning. My goal is to have a publicly-funded system that is accessible to all who need to avail of IVF services.

On top of these measures, I am also pleased to deliver, along with the Ministers of State, Deputies Butler, Feighan and Rabbitte, extra one-off funding for the coming winter of €110 million to support community-based voluntary organisations. They are an essential pillar in the provision of health services across the country. This fund is being made available in recognition of the challenges faced by the sector in delivering and maintaining health and social care services against a backdrop of increased inflationary pressures. A detailed plan to disburse these funds is being finalised.

It is clear that some patients - too many patients - face unacceptable delays in accessing healthcare. For next year, I have secured overall funding of €443 million specifically targeted at tackling waiting lists and getting people the care they need when they need it. It includes recurrent funding for the HSE, as well as funding for the National Treatment Purchase Fund, NTPF.

It includes additional funding for the provision of general practitioner diagnostics, which is one of the great successes in our move towards integrated and universal healthcare. Significant resources are also being allocated to the continued implementation of the national clinical strategies, which have received unprecedented levels of funding in recent years. We are also funding a number of new strategies for the first time, which we are delighted to do. These include strategies relating to stroke, bariatrics and obesity, national genetics and genomics, diabetes and neurorehabilitation.

Budget 2023 funds our ongoing Covid response. More than that, it is also about making healthcare affordable for people. It is about improving access to care for patients, building, extending and improving services, and it is about building capacity. Over the past two years, this Government has delivered record increases in hospital bed capacity, critical care capacity, and the number of healthcare staff working across our health services. We have hired more than 15,000 staff since the start of 2020. This includes 4,500 nurses and midwives, 2,300 health and social care professionals and 1,400 doctors. 2020 and 2021 have seen the biggest staff increases since the HSE was established. We have made real progress in addressing a long-standing deficit in critical care capacity and other areas, including the workforce. In 2020 we had 255 critical care beds. We are on track to have 336 by the end of this year and we will move forward quickly. We are delivering. We have a clear plan. Budget 2023 reaffirms this Government’s absolute commitment to universal healthcare.

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