Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Sinn Féin for tabling this important motion. It allows us time to examine the Government's recruitment freeze in more detail, and perhaps the Government will set out a logical, detailed and coherent argument for its introduction. If not, we will support its removal.

The HSE is bloated. It costs the taxpayer too much via waste and the system is failing to deal with the major problems of waiting lists in the various health departments. Comparing the budget allocations for the Department of Health between 2016 and 2023, we see an increase in spending of almost 70%, from €13.6 billion in 2016 to more than €23 billion in 2023. This is a colossal increase. An increase of €10 billion in the space of seven years is simply eye-watering, yet despite all this money being thrown at the organisation, what do we have to show for it?

Waiting lists are getting longer and there is a crisis in virtually all sectors the health service, including the GP sector. The health service has not been underfunded - it is more than adequately funded - but the funding is clearly not being used to achieve the best outcomes. We are told a recruitment freeze, which has been extended to almost all areas of the HSE, is required to address the problem, but I have major concerns about the knock-on impact it will have on the functioning of our health service. I do not understand why it has been introduced or why the Government has not explained the rationale for it more clearly. The key question is what, in reality, a recruitment freeze will lead to. In what way does it address the problems of waiting lists and people being left in limbo for years awaiting medical treatment?

I regularly raise health-related issues with service provision, whereby people are left waiting for treatment and funded services are unable to operate. Between contributions in this Chamber and at the public accounts committee, I have brought up CAMHS-related matters about 50 times. On almost every one of these occasions, the crux of the issues raised could be linked back to one word, staffing. The vast majority of the time, the reason is a lack of staff in CAMHS, disability services, care settings and virtually every other setting.

Big capital investment projects in recent years have been shambolic. The national children's hospital is still not operational, despite construction having started seven years ago. When it is eventually completed, it is on course to be nearly three times as expensive per bed as the next most expensive hospital ever built in the history of mankind. How many people have been or will be held to account for this failure or removed from their positions?

In recent days, there was an announcement in the North for eight new MRI scanners in Belfast; meanwhile, Wexford General Hospital has been waiting five years for one.

When we see a health budget of €23 billion, one wonders why the people of Wexford had to fundraise €250,000 towards the cost of an MRI scanner that is still not in place years later. In addition there is no start yet on the new 97-bed unit in Wexford General Hospital. Planning applications are going in shortly and phase 1, the building of a car park, will begin first, but we have very scant information on when work on the 97-bed unit will begin or, more importantly, when it will be completed.

I do not believe the recruitment freeze has been justified or that it will help address the major problems that exist within our health service. There is no use in increasing health spending every year if all it means is the volume of waste is increased. I received a very disheartening email today from a young man who is suffering with seizures and believes he is quite ill. He is unable to obtain an appointment with a neurologist anywhere in the country, yet, at the same time, we are talking about a recruitment freeze in the health service. I ask the Minster to consider the motion and to consider reversing the freeze.

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