Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Senator Paul Gavan spoke against tax cuts, but one of the problems in the recruitment of junior doctors to the health service is that they pay tax at the higher rate on earnings above €34,550. Everyone wants more doctors and nurses, but more and more are leaving the country because, under the tax regime, they pay tax at the higher rate on too low a salary. It is time people made up their minds about what they want. A junior doctor has to move constantly and cannot buy a property, but he or she pays tax at the higher rate. The same is true of nurses, representatives of whom were before the health committee yesterday. They want pay increases, but if we do that, we will have to collect more tax. We cannot have it both ways. Do we want junior doctors and nurses and do we want them to pay tax at a high rate on a low income level? I make no apologies for looking for tax cuts for such persons. No one earning less than €40,000 should be paying tax at the higher rate.

It is very important that we put in place a structure to check the implementation of the national development plan. I am very concerned about it, particularly as it affects the health service. Last year I identified 1,600 additional persons working in the clerical and managerial sections of the HSE. I recently sought up-to date information. There are 2,605 additional persons since December 2014 in the clerical and managerial sections of the HSE. There are now more than 17,000 staff in that area, while the number of public nurses has increased by 80, from 1,460.. We need to get our priorities right. I do not want the moneys set aside for the national development plan to be put into administration. I want projects to be identified and a timescale for identifying locations, starting the planning process and beginning the building work. I do not want to see a repeat of what happened in the case of the national children's hospital, which process took 25 years to complete. We need to get on with it. We need checks and balances for every Department and State agency in implementation of the plan. We need to have a debate on the procedures to be used in checking a Department is delivering on the targets set for it.