Micheál Martin (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There is absolutely no moratorium on staff. There will be an increase in staff of over 3,500 whole-time equivalents in the health service. We have to also look at innovative ways of getting value for that money. People spoke earlier about scanners and so on in an art gallery and created a huge stir - rightly so - over a figure of about €100,000. We are talking about €25.5 billion here. That will go up again before the year is out and again in 2026 and 2027. There is more to be done in health - do not get me wrong - but we cannot argue that someone is cheeseparing or there is pullback in funding. There is not.

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