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

There is €30 million for 2022, so the full amount allocated in that year was not spent. I was not aware of that. I am not sure it is correct but I will double-check because my impression had been the opposite in that any time any additional funding was provided for new medicines it was not enough. If that is the case, there is a problem so I will definitely check up on that this week and get back to the Deputy as soon as I can.

Deputy Moynihan mentioned that budget 2023, including funding to extend free GP care to children aged six and seven and also to those on median incomes or below. If that can be achieved, it will be the biggest expansion of free GP care probably in decades. It will mean for the first time in Ireland that most people will not have to pay to see their GP. That would be a considerable achievement if we can get it done this year. The Minister for Health, Deputy Donnelly, is in negotiations with the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, INMO, about this. We accept that more people having free GP care will result in increased attendances. We have to bare that in mind. It will result in their private incomes falling and I know GPs have a concern about what the next steps after that might be. There is only so much capacity in the system and, as many people will know, it can be hard to register with a GP at all at the moment. Implementation will require additional financial resources and also additional staff resources for GPs such as staff nurses and administrative assistants, for example. Therefore, we are hoping to get agreement on that and it is still intended to be implemented this year.

Deputy Dillon raised the issue of the primary healthcare centre in Ballyhaunis and, as he mentioned, there is an issue with the contractor. The cost of construction has gone up but we have a protocol as to how we deal with that. It involves a degree of burden sharing and negotiation but I will follow up on it with the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, and with Mr. Bernard Gloster. We are very keen to have that important facility up and running.

Deputy McDonald raised the issue of HSE recruitment. Again, I put on the record of the House that there are 20,000 more people working in our health service now than at the start of 2020. This includes 2,000 extra doctors and 6,000 extra nurses. One would be forgiven for thinking that our entire health service workforce had emigrated to Australia. This, of course, is not the case. People are going in both directions and overall we have been able to increase the number of people working in our health service, including the number of doctors, nurses, midwives, dentists and therapists over the past three years. This year, the target is to increase the size of the health service workforce by a further 6,000 and we believe that will be achieved.

I think everyone acknowledges we have a huge challenge in staffing our health service, given the rising demand and the availability of new treatments and therapies. It is not a challenge unique to Ireland. It is the same problem in Northern Ireland, Britain, Germany, Australia, and Canada. Everyone is competing internationally for staff because everyone is short of staff. However, the kind of things we are doing, as well as improving pay, are increasing the number of training places for nurses, doctors, GPs, midwives and therapists and engaging in increased international recruitment. We now have a very attractive consultant contract which grants €250,000 if a person commits to public practice. That is a pretty good offer and we believe there are doctors and consultants in other jurisdictions who may be willing to take that up.

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