David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister will accept that a 3% increase is modest. It is welcome and deserved by workers but we are in the throes of a cost-of-living crisis in which inflation is running high. For many workers, any pay increases is just allowing them to stand still to meet all the rising costs and so on. A priority for all of us with an interest in healthcare, in addition to all the other things we are trying to get done, is to ensure we have proper IT systems and that, once and for all, we deal with all the legacy issues.

On children's disability network teams, we cannot get real-time data in respect of much of what is happening because of the outdated system. It is working off a database that cannot be updated because the company behind it has, I believe, gone out of business. A new one is being built. Voluntary and HSE hospitals have different systems. Even within public hospitals, there are different systems.

We had the same argument concerning the Estimates and an integrated financial management system. This will require significant public investment and take time, but we have to collectively agree we are going to do what is required and do it as quickly as we can.

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