Results 45,041-45,060 of 49,836 for speaker:Stephen Donnelly

Seanad: Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023: Report and Final Stages (1 May 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: This is a significant and memorable day. This legislation delivers on an important programme for Government promise, namely to establish safe access zones for women and service providers right across the country. Safe access zones will now become a reality in our country. Once this Bill is signed into law by the President, it will protect service users and providers. It will allow women...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Health Service Executive (2 May 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: I thank the Deputy. On the pay and numbers strategy, that has been authorised, so there should be no issue with it being published. It comes to a little over 1,800 new posts and we are seeking mechanisms to fully roll out safe staffing through agency conversion as well. The net impact will be about 2,300 staff and more staff will be announced as part of the additional €92 million...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Health Service Executive (2 May 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: The context for this is important. The Deputy quite rightly referred to the increase in healthcare demand. We have had an unprecedented increase in the number of healthcare workers as well. There has been a pretty extraordinary 24% increase in our health and social care workforce in the lifetime of this Government, or nearly 29,000 more healthcare professionals working in the health...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Health Service Executive (2 May 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: The embargo is simply a mechanism that was required for an organisation that was hiring staff it had no money or sanction to hire. If a school principal started hiring teachers he or she had no money to hire, the school would be told immediately to stop hiring because it had no sanction to hire the teachers and no funding had been allocated for their salaries. The school would be told it...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Health Service Executive (2 May 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: -----to stop hiring teachers, and it is the same in this case. Unfortunately, we had a deeply frustrating situation where the HSE had hired thousands of people. The central controls within the HSE failed. The HSE, as soon as it saw it was coming anywhere near its funded target for the year, should have identified that. Had it done that, no such measure would have been required. I...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Cannabis for Medicinal Use (2 May 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: I thank the Deputy for his question and acknowledge his ongoing work in this area, both in terms of the MCAP initially and the evolution of the programme. As he will be aware, we launched the medical cannabis access programme in 2021 for three conditions initially: refractory epilepsy, spasticity as a result of MS and nausea from chemotherapy. Since the inception of the programme, 55...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Cannabis for Medicinal Use (2 May 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: I accept the Deputy's position. It is a smaller number of people. We know from the clinicians that in many cases they are nervous about prescribing, even though the MCAP is in place for the unlicensed products. As I said, we will do a clinical review of the HRB findings. I am very open to expanding the programme. We will be led by the clinical view on this. What is interesting though...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Cannabis for Medicinal Use (2 May 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: I take the Deputy's point. I think that is all very fair. We have now a pathway to address exactly those issues. I will ask my officials to bear all of that in mind. The unit dealing with this will take note of our interaction this morning. The first question is whether we expand from the three conditions. I am very open to that. Second, what we need to do is engage with the...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Hospital Services (2 May 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: I join the Deputy in offering my condolences to Aoife's family and friends. I met her mum and dad at the start of the year and offered my apologies as well as condolences because she was failed and she should not have died. It is heartbreaking. The answer to the challenge of overcrowding in the emergency department in UHL is capacity and reform. We have made sure that UHL is the...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Hospital Services (2 May 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: I agree. The reconfiguration was not done right at all and the measures that the Government is putting in place should have been put in place before the reconfiguration happened. That is my view. What I can stand over is what the Government is doing. The Government has added a level of capacity into Limerick that has never been done before and there is no hospital in the country that has...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Hospital Services (2 May 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: Sorry, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle.

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Hospital Services (2 May 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: Let us bear in mind that when I say we have added more staff, we have increased the staff by more than 40%. This is not a few more staff. An additional 433 nurses, for example, are working in the hospital. It has been a vast increase. In terms of a model 3 hospital, we should never rule anything out. The chief executive and I have asked all six of the regional executive officers, now...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Hospital Services (2 May 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: I thank the Deputy for the question. I acknowledge that the waiting lists for these children are simply too long and that while more capacity is being is being added and more surgeries are being done, there are a number of children for whom the wait is simply unacceptable. In 2022, I asked Children's Health Ireland to come up with a comprehensive plan that would mean that of the children...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Hospital Services (2 May 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: I can. We had a useful session yesterday. I might organise a briefing for members of the health committee who are interested as well. There is a lot of important work under way. As to the treatment abroad scheme or whatever it might be, we have been very clear with CHI in saying if it can find what our surgeons say is clinically appropriate care for the children, be that in Boston's...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Hospital Services (2 May 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: I do not disagree with any of that. The families are angry and they have every right to be angry. There is no defending what has happened. We have to fix it and fix it permanently. That is what this dedicated spinal unit is going to do. The team in CHI are meeting other international providers this week. I have told them that as far as I am concerned they have full authority to go and...

Teachtaireacht ón Seanad - Message from Seanad (2 May 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: Great news, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Health Services Staff (2 May 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: I propose to take Questions Nos. 5 and 22 together. I thank Deputies Kenny and Collins for raising this matter. On the back of their questions I engaged with my officials and the HSE on this. As per the questions, they are accepting there are shortages affecting the child development checks in Dublin south and Dublin west. The public health nurse service is experiencing significant...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Health Services Staff (2 May 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: I thank Deputies Collins and Kenny. This is a serious issue and I fully accept the Deputies' representations. I absolutely take Deputy Collins's point. We cannot have children not getting these developmental checks, we cannot have parents who are worried and we certainly cannot have the kinds of delays the Deputy has referenced. I will commit to taking this up at a senior level within the...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Health Services Staff (2 May 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: I agree that it is not good enough. We need a resolution to this and we need it more quickly than one is now coming about. I will raise it with the HSE and come back to the Deputies with a note. If they would like, I will set up a meeting with HSE officials so that they can explain exactly where we are. Other parts of the country are not experiencing this difficulty. Some might be but...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Health Services Staff (2 May 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: I am not proposing that they ask GPs to do the developmental checks. What I mean is that, if parents see something with their child that they are concerned about, they should go to the GP. I am not asking the GPs to replace the public health nurses in providing the general checks.