Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This is not extra money. It is money required by the health service to stand still and allow it to deliver what it has delivered heretofore. The Government forces health services to wait and react to demand rather than giving them resources that would allow them to plan and prepare. Representatives of the IFAC outlined to the Committee on Budgetary Oversight that spending less on health is likely to cost more money. A chief economist stated:

A bit of money probably needs to be spent to save money in the long run. There is an element of not going down the road of penny-pinching but spending to save money in the long run.

Fine Gael’s short-sighted approach to budgeting will damage healthcare even further but will also cost us more money in the long run. This does not make sense. The Minister of State knows what is happening on the ground. He knows because the money is not there to do what needs to be done in social care, community care and primary care. We also have a backlog in acute hospitals and capital projects are being left behind on top of everything else. We are in serious trouble in the area of health.

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