Marie Sherlock (Dublin Central, Labour)

Some 750,000 people are waiting on outpatient waiting lists. Time and again children are being failed because of the huge shortage of therapies and supports to those with additional needs in this country. It is not clear to me that the health budget of €1.5 billion announced today is in any way sufficient to cover existing services, growing demand, a rising population and higher prices. The reality is that we have a health sector that is running to try to stand still. We have been here before with regard to works of fiction and then supplementary Votes were required. There is a presumption here that the €1.5 billion announced today, which is less than two thirds of last year's injection, will be enough. To me the sums do not add up. This Government can say all it wants about record investment into the sector and the need for productivity, which we in the Labour Party very much support, but we all know and we can see that the funding to the health sector is not keeping up with population growth and the rising intensity of demand.

There has been a 12% increase per thousand of population in presentations to accident and emergency departments over the past six years. Crucial to this is that it is not only the population increase but also the rising need for healthcare among our population. This is not accounting for the people in the mid-west who are too afraid to go to the accident and emergency department in Limerick nor indeed to other emergency departments across the country.

With regard to mental health and the demand for care in the community, time and again we see a rising need and yet the staffing per thousand of population is falling behind. At the end of last year, the number of staff for child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, was lower than a year earlier. There are now fewer public health nurses across the country than five years ago. This Government can talk all it wants about preventing hospitalisation or about keeping people in their homes but demand is rising, staff numbers in certain sectors are barely moving, and the reality is that we have a serious capacity issue.

The Government put a lot of store this year on increasing productivity in hospitals and with regard to rostering, which we in the Labour Party very much support. There is, however, a reality that this project of productivity cannot be completed without electronic health records and without more beds. We did not see a peep out of the Government today about this massive project of electronic health records. We have to ask the question: where is the money for it?

In last year's budget Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael were falling over themselves promising the electorate more hospital beds. Even though in 2024 the Department of Health identified a need of 3,378 extra beds by 2031, Fine Gael went out at election time and said it would deliver 5,000 if it was re-elected. Fianna Fáil was, uncharacteristically, more timid and went for 4,000 more beds. Then the programme for Government solemnly committed to 4,500 over the next five years. Of course, what has been happening? Far fewer than that have been delivered and today's announcement is even lower than what was committed to last year.

Last year, we were told we would get 335 beds this year. Only 286 have been delivered. We know we need to have 453 beds per annum, according to the ESRI analysis, if we are to meet demand by 2040 and yet, today's announcement is less than half of that. The impact on the ground for patients is that more people will not be able to access hospital care and those within hospital care will not be able to access step-down and other appropriate beds.

The situation in community nursing home care is even more acute. There are fewer long- and short-stay beds available in 2025 than there were five years ago. The national development plan promised 4,500 long-term and short-term community nursing home beds by 2027. The promise for this year was 160 beds and yet, we know that less than half that number, just 68, will come on stream. Today, we have a commitment of 280 beds and we welcome that but I have no confidence in this wide earthly world that this Government will deliver on that. Earlier this year, the Government came out and promised us we would have more public nursing home beds following the crisis in Emeis Ireland. It is not clear from today's budget that we are going to see any progress on that. Those commitments made in the spring of this year are all beginning to ring a bit hollow now.

There are those watching on today with a disability who believe they have been betrayed by this Government, betrayed because over the past three budgets there has been a recognition of the cost of disability, there has been a disability support payment and there have been one-off payments to recognise the situation they are in, but the plug has been pulled on them today. Shame on this Government.

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