Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the budget, especially the funding of more than €22.5 billion to be provided in health. An important area in healthcare is the delivery of infrastructure and there is a need to fast-track that area. It is interesting to see that the population has increased by 1.5 million people in the past 23 years. We have gone from 3.8 million people to 5.2 million. That is a 40% increase. It is now important that we deliver the services required to serve that population. It is likely that the population will reach 6 million by 2030. There is therefore an urgent need to fast-track all the areas in healthcare.

I welcome the budget, but we need to change the structures under which we deliver. For instance, while our elective hospitals have been clearly identified as required, they are still only at design stage. They now need to be prioritised. It is also interesting that despite the criticism of our healthcare system, we have the longest life expectancy in Europe. The latest Central Statistics Office, CSO, figures show that we have more than 805,000 people over the age of 66. By 2030, we will have 1 million. One point I keep making is that this means there will be a growing demand for hospital care. At any one time, 50% of hospital beds are occupied by people over the age of 66.

It is also about making sure step-down facilities are available. As we speak today in the Dáil, more than 600 people are in hospital who could be discharged. We need to fast-track the discharge process to ensure people do not wait two or three months in hospital for a suitable location to be identified to transfer them to. It blocks the system if we cannot get the step-down facilities in place. The facilities are available. It is about reorganisation. The Minister has been putting on a lot of pressure to ensure consultants are available at weekends, but discharge is not only about consultants being available; we also need the administrative staff to be there to make sure the discharge is implemented, especially when people are going into step-down facilities. The challenge is that we have more people who do not have familial support. It is a growing problem, especially in rural areas, and we need to see how we can further develop responses to that in the next 12 months. It is even difficult in urban areas. For example in the HSE south-west area, more than 1,500 people were employed by the HSE to provide home care. That dropped by more than 400 people in a short period more than 12 months ago and it has been hard to get the number back up. It is important that we use the money we have in the most efficient way possible. One way to do so is to keep people out of hospital, whether by giving them home support or providing access to step-down facilities if that is what they need. The facilities are there in the public and private sectors.

I need to touch on one other area, the challenges in the building sector. At one stage, the number of people working in that sector made up 12% of the workforce. They now only make up 6% of the workforce. I welcome the money that has been allocated to increasing apprenticeships. The target is that 16,000 people should be brought into apprenticeships in the trades. That is extremely important. There is one message about apprenticeships we need to sell. Young people want to travel and it is important they have a skill and a base to easily get employment if they travel and can come back again. It is interesting that 144,000 Irish people came home in the past five years. Some 138,000 people left in the same five years. Those figures show that Ireland is an attractive place to live, to rear a family and to grow old. We need to continue to encourage that. While we do not have any difficulty with people travelling, we need to ensure that Ireland is a welcoming place for them to come home to.

I welcome the funding that has been made available in the area of apprenticeships and in ensuring we get a sufficient number of people into the building trades so that we continue to build our healthcare infrastructure, our schools, our roads and our housing.

That is a very big contribution in this budget and it is something I very much welcome.

See this speech in context