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

I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. At the outset, I want to acknowledge that there are far too many people in Ireland waiting far too long to see a specialist or get the operation they need, and that our emergency departments are very busy at the moment and that is putting staff under a lot of pressure. I am really sorry that Mr. Sheehan's grandfather had the experience that he did. It is not acceptable that should be the case.

It is important, though, to put on the record of the House that there has been phenomenal additional investment in health services under this Government. Since 2020, only four years ago, we have recruited 20,000 more staff, with 1,000 more consultants. We are now in the top five in terms of practising nurses per head of population in the OECD. That investment is making a difference. We see significant overcrowding in our hospitals this January but it is not as bad as we saw in previous years. That is, at least in part, down to the extra beds, extra doctors, extra nurses and extra staff. We saw last year that waiting times for patients fell. For two years in a row, we have seen waiting lists fall. They peaked after the pandemic, but have been falling since then. I believe this year will be the third year in a row in which we will see the number of people waiting more than ten to 12 weeks fall. That is a not insignificant achievement. North of the Border, across the water in the UK and in most developed countries in the world they are seeing waiting lists rising, yet for Ireland waiting lists have fallen for two years in a row and will fall this year for the third year in a row. That is down to the phenomenal work of the people who work in our health service and also the massive additional Government investment that has been put into the health service in the past three or four years.

With regard to the recruitment embargo, it is important to say what that actually means. What it actually means is that the HSE can hire an additional 2,000 staff this year. We have had a big increase in the number of staff in the HSE and it can hire an extra 2,000 staff this year. What we cannot have is what we have seen in the past, that is, the HSE getting approval for one group of staff but not hiring them and hiring a different group of staff instead. We have to put some decent control on this. The recruitment embargo, as it is described, actually means the HSE can hire 2,000 extra people this year, however. Of course, it does not apply to graduate nurses and midwives, for example, or to consultants or GPs.

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