Áine Brady (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)

I am taking this Adjournment matter on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney. I am happy to have the opportunity to address the issue raised by the Senator.

As Members will be aware, under the Health Act 2004, the Health Service Executive has the responsibility to manage and deliver or arrange to have delivered on its behalf health and personal social services. This includes the delivery of audiology services and the prioritising and resourcing of the development of national community audiology services. I wish to set out the position on national policy on the operation of the general public sector moratorium as it affects health services, including the delivery of audiology services.

The Government has made it clear that a critical part of its strategy to restore the public finances is to achieve sustainability in the cost of delivering public services relative to State revenues. To help to achieve this goal, it will be necessary to restructure and reorganise the public service and reduce public service numbers in the coming years. This requires that the moratorium on recruitment and promotion in the health service will continue to apply until the numbers have fallen to the level set out in the employment control framework for the health sector. The framework for 2010 to 2012 gives effect to the Government decision on employment policy in the public sector and provides that there will be a net reduction in employment of 6,000 between March 2009 and the end of 2012, with consequential pay roll savings. Based on the reductions in numbers already achieved in 2009, the net target reduction to the end of 2012 is 4,560 whole-time equivalents. Therefore, the net target reduction in numbers in 2010 and the following two years is 1,520 whole-time equivalents.

The Government decision has been modulated to ensure key services are maintained in so far as possible in the health service, particularly in respect of children at risk, older people and persons with a disability. The framework provides for a number of grades and posts that are exempt from the moratorium on recruitment and promotion. The HSE also has the capacity under the framework to fill some posts, provided it achieves the overall target reductions.

Ireland has a relatively low ratio of audiological scientists to the population and, even within the country, there are regional imbalances. There are significant demands placed on community audiology services nationwide. Given the aging population, the service will be expected to meet a greatly increased demand. These and other issues are being addressed in the national review of audiology services commissioned by the HSE. The overarching objective of the review is to assess the needs of the population for audiology services, audit current provision to assess the extent to which it is both adequate and consistent and make recommendations to address inadequacies and inconsistencies with an implementation road map. The Department of Health and Children will consider recommendations brought forward by the review which will inform future delivery of this important service.