Results 3,541-3,560 of 12,424 for speaker:Louise O'Reilly

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Overspend on the Health Budget 2018: Discussion (24 Oct 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: Out of €346 million?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Overspend on the Health Budget 2018: Discussion (24 Oct 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: The HSE is short? Come on. If Mr. Mulvany was in Tesco and €346 million was the bill and he said he had €60 million, they would say he is more than short. Where did that figure come from? The HSE must have estimated that those savings could be made. It must have looked at an area where current spending could be cut. I know the health service well and I know how hard...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Overspend on the Health Budget 2018: Discussion (24 Oct 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: It falls far short.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Overspend on the Health Budget 2018: Discussion (24 Oct 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: I am sorry to labour the point, but the figure of €346 million was identified. I fully take Mr. Mulvany's point that it is not the same as running a coffee shop, but when the HSE is asked to make savings, it surely has to be realistic. If the figure was €350 million, we might say it was someone rounding up or whatever else, but with such a specific figure, I would have...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Overspend on the Health Budget 2018: Discussion (24 Oct 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: Am I correct in saying that as yet there is no funded workforce plan for 2018?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Overspend on the Health Budget 2018: Discussion (24 Oct 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: I want to know if there is such a plan. Perhaps it is a case of rainbows and unicorns, but I would have thought the HSE would have had a funded workforce plan for 2018 in, say, December 2017, yet we are now almost in November 2018. As I understand it, there were discussions with trade unions on a funded workforce plan. Again, I am only observing this and obviously not involved, but the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Overspend on the Health Budget 2018: Discussion (24 Oct 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: I will try to be brief. Reference was made to the period Professor Brendan Drumm was in charge of the health service and whether there may have been overruns at that time. If my memory serves me correctly, that period coincided with the imposition of the moratorium on recruitment, and by the way I am not defending Professor Drumm's record. Would that have been around the same time?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Overspend on the Health Budget 2018: Discussion (24 Oct 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: It was trying to get that clear in my head. I referenced earlier the general funded workforce plan. When I briefly stepped out of the meeting, I checked the specific one for nurses and midwives. It has been brought twice to the Workplace Relations Commission and now it is going to the Labour Court. I emphasise it is the funded workforce plan for 2018 and it is now almost November. We all...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Overspend on the Health Budget 2018: Discussion (24 Oct 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: I am aware of that. I am not talking about the actual charge. I am talking about stretch income targets, the target versus the figure. There is a difference. Mr. Mulvany knows that. There is a difference between collecting all the money which HSE is obliged to do, and that is separate, but setting a target for the amount of money causes a problem with regard to how the HSE is going to...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Overspend on the Health Budget 2018: Discussion (24 Oct 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: It is not the income targets, it is the stretch target. There are the targets and then there is the imposition of stretch income targets. That goes beyond the simple practice that if a hospital has a private patient, it levies that private patient, which of course it does. That gives rise to what happens if there are two patients in an accident and emergency department and only one bed is...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Overspend on the Health Budget 2018: Discussion (24 Oct 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: That is compounded by setting targets.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Overspend on the Health Budget 2018: Discussion (24 Oct 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: It is.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Overspend on the Health Budget 2018: Discussion (24 Oct 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: This is a stretch target. This is what the HSE has been told it has to collect and, on top of that, an additional target.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Overspend on the Health Budget 2018: Discussion (24 Oct 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: It came in a submission from the HSE. Mr. Mulvany should not struggle with it.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Overspend on the Health Budget 2018: Discussion (24 Oct 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: Mr. Mulvany can talk to Mr. Liam Woods. He was here. We spoke about it.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Overspend on the Health Budget 2018: Discussion (24 Oct 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: And reducing the agency and overtime bill.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Overspend on the Health Budget 2018: Discussion (24 Oct 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: There was a report in a newspaper within the last fortnight regarding discussions that may or may not have been held about the overspend. The newspaper uses language such as "out of control" and other hysteria, but it has to be paid for. There was talk of some sort of curtailment plan for staffing within the health service. We have been there before with the recruitment moratorium. It had...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Overspend on the Health Budget 2018: Discussion (24 Oct 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: Are they published?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Overspend on the Health Budget 2018: Discussion (24 Oct 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: Is that for next year?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Overspend on the Health Budget 2018: Discussion (24 Oct 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: Mr. Mulvany has that to the end of 2018. Can we see that? Is it published?