Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Last year's budget represented the highest level of funding that has ever been provided to the Department of Health. At that point, more than €6 billion of additional funding was provided to it, compared with where we were in 2019. What has happened since is that the level of additional health expenditure in the first half of this year exceeded any expectations that I could have had. This was driven by a number of factors, not least of which has been the continued attendance of a high number of older patients in particular in emergency departments at a level that is now materially affecting the spending we have for health within the year.

I have many years of experience of managing the health budget with the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, and with previous Ministers for Health. We handled the health budget for last year no differently from how we handled it in any other year. What has happened however is the level of additional spending has been at a higher level for demographic and healthcare reasons. It is also due to control issues that we continue to have in the acute hospital sector. The framework that we have put in place offers the opportunity to deal with that.

See this speech in context