Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I find myself in agreement with Deputy Colm Burke. We need to be training more people to work in the health service. We need to be specifically training more people to work in areas including the one the Deputy has mentioned around radiation therapy, but we need to do it in a manner that works. We need to do it in a way that is not ad hoc. We need to do it in a way that is grounded in the overall work of the health service, the issue around clinical placements and the issue around workforce planning projections.

I thank my Department, the Department of Health, the HSE, CORU, the HEA and the higher education institutions. They have been doing a really good piece of work. I am proud of the work that they have done to determine what could health service places in colleges look like over the next number of years and what could we get done between now and September.

I think we could see modest increases in some areas including radiation therapy, as well as larger increases in other areas in health this year. From September 2024, however, there is the potential to do a lot more, and the Minister for Health and I are working together to finalise this. I hope to be in a position this month to update the Cabinet and then publish what that will look like.

See this speech in context