Results 12,801-12,820 of 49,836 for speaker:Stephen Donnelly
- Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2020
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Supplementary) (2 Dec 2020) Stephen Donnelly: Hang on-----
- Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2020
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Supplementary) (2 Dec 2020) Stephen Donnelly: I know.
- Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2020
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Supplementary) (2 Dec 2020) Stephen Donnelly: I understand and I am coming to that. From my conversations with the public health doctors, it is not all they talk about. What is important to them is that they have the resources and teams they currently do not have. It is just as important, from what I am hearing from them, that we give them the teams and staff they need. Several hundred interviews are happening now. This real and...
- Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2020
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Supplementary) (2 Dec 2020) Stephen Donnelly: I thought we were. Think about what we have done in the last few months. We have done more in the last few months than has been done in 20 or 30 years. There is, therefore, no need for the strike, in my view. I know they do not want to go out on strike.
- Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2020
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Supplementary) (2 Dec 2020) Stephen Donnelly: Regarding the overseas treatment, based on the cross-border directive and treatment abroad scheme, there would be an estimated amount for how much we would have spent this year. All this does is say that, obviously, because people could not travel, that money did not get spent. It is just reduced from the extra amount we need.
- Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2020
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Supplementary) (2 Dec 2020) Stephen Donnelly: One does not roll it over but there will be provisioning in next year for the amount that would have been in for this year. It is there for next year.
- Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2020
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Supplementary) (2 Dec 2020) Stephen Donnelly: Yes, more or less.
- Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2020
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Supplementary) (2 Dec 2020) Stephen Donnelly: My understanding is that most of that is staff-related costs. We will now have public health staff at ports in a way that we never had previously because of Brexit.
- Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2020
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Supplementary) (2 Dec 2020) Stephen Donnelly: I want to make sure I get the Deputy exactly the right level of detail. Can I get her a note on that?
- Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2020
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Supplementary) (2 Dec 2020) Stephen Donnelly: Not within this €10 million, but for next year. The €10 million that we are looking at here was a one-off fund we created for the voluntary sector, €8.5 million of which went to voluntary hospices around the country. As for the other €1.5 million, there are community palliative care voluntary services in a few of the community healthcare organisations which we...
- Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2020
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Supplementary) (2 Dec 2020) Stephen Donnelly: Not that specific funding, but certainly there is an expansion of palliative care services going on.
- Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2020
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Supplementary) (2 Dec 2020) Stephen Donnelly: I thank the Deputy. It is a really good question and one I have asked. I wrote to the HSE quite some time ago to say almost exactly what the Deputy has said. Given the vast amount of money that is being spent, much of it outside the normal checks and balances that are in place for procurement, I asked whether the HSE could do an audit of it and come back to us. It has given an undertaking...
- Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2020
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Supplementary) (2 Dec 2020) Stephen Donnelly: That is a great question. It is certainly happening on PPE, which would be one of the biggest amounts. For example, in the amount we are looking at here, €667 million is for PPE alone. It is a vast amount of money. Testing and tracing, obviously, involved a huge amount of money as well.
- Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2020
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Supplementary) (2 Dec 2020) Stephen Donnelly: I think it is.
- Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2020
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Supplementary) (2 Dec 2020) Stephen Donnelly: I agree that they add to the base. We have done it quite differently this year. Last year, the winter plan cost €30 million. This year, it is €600 million. We are doing things at a completely different scale. In fairness, what we designed with the HSE was a winter plan. So far, it is working. The trolley numbers are at 30% of what they were last year but presentations are...
- Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2020
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Supplementary) (2 Dec 2020) Stephen Donnelly: Budget 2021 includes provision for that and it actually states that our capacity has gone up and we are continuing it with the rest of the budget. This is one of the reasons that the budget was so high. I felt it quite right to point at the Government budgets but as I said at the start, if the Deputy has not already done this I suggest she look at the ESRI report on comparative healthcare...
- Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2020
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Supplementary) (2 Dec 2020) Stephen Donnelly: Yes, it would, absolutely.
- Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2020
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Supplementary) (2 Dec 2020) Stephen Donnelly: I will get the Deputy a breakdown of that. I can tell him that of that amount, €208 million of it was for the China Resources Pharmaceuticals deal and there was money spent with Irish providers, EU providers and further afield.
- Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2020
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Supplementary) (2 Dec 2020) Stephen Donnelly: If we assume that demand and supply were broadly matched in that the HSE got what people were ultimately looking for, this will not be perfect but when things calm down I will get the Deputy a schedule of exactly what was bought. If we assume that that broadly matches supply, then it will answer the question around what was needed.
- Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2020
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Supplementary) (2 Dec 2020) Stephen Donnelly: More than that, I formally requested one from the HSE and it has agreed to this. The HSE will come back to me with an audit on that in the first quarter of next year.