David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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1857. To ask the Minister for Health the breakdown of the additional funding allocated in budget 2021 to the Health Research Board; and the way in which it was spent. [35657/21]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The Health Research Board (HRB) is the State Agency under the Department of Health that supports and funds health and social care research and provides evidence to inform policy and practice. During 2021 the HRB published its new 2021-2025 strategy with the vision of “Better health through excellent research, data and evidence.”

Budget 2021 provided a core allocation (net non-capital expenditure allocation) for the HRB of €34.954m for 2021. This is an increase on 2020 of €0.55m. This funding will support initiatives, under the direction of the HRB Board, aligned with the strategic objectives and key actions set out in the HRB Strategy (2021-2025).

In addition, a further €7.26m is provided for non-core funding under Budget 2021, an increase of over €1m. Within this the actual composition of spend will change from year to year, with some projects finishing and new projects being added. As a result, the net change in the 2021 non-core allocation is less than the total allocations approved for new initiatives, or increases to existing initiatives.

Allocations approved for new initiatives or increases to existing initiatives in non-core allocations include:

- An extra €2m funding to support dedicated Covid-19-related research, a priority is to complete an application and peer review process to establish and maintain a National Covid-19 biobank in line with best international standards and practice.

- An extra €0.8m to support legislative requirements. This includes (a) an extra €0.75m to advance the urgent work programme of Office for National Research Ethics Committees in 2021, in particular the establishment of National Research Ethics Committees to ensure compliance for the ethical review of proposals falling under the Clinical Trials Directive of Medicinal Products and the Medical Devices Directive, and (b) an extra €0.35m to support the costs of the Health Research Consent Declaration Committee.

- An extra €0.06m to support the conduct of a follow-on survey on the impact of Covid-19 in people with intellectual disability (under the Intellectual Disability Supplement to TILDA IDS-TILDA).

Budget 2021 also allowed for the funding of €0.6m in support of the 2020 Government decision for Ireland’s participation in the WHO SOLIDARITY Trial of Covid-19 treatments. This reflected the cost of participation up until end March 2021 and built on previous funding provided by the Department in 2020 of €1.4m.

David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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1858. To ask the Minister for Health the breakdown of the additional funding allocated in budget 2021 to the Institute of Public Health; and the way in which it was spent. [35658/21]

Frank Feighan (Sligo-Leitrim, Fine Gael)
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€1.377m was allocated to the Institute of Public Health in 2021. This funding will be used to further the Strategic Objectives identified by the Institute for implementation from 2020 – 2025. These are:

- understanding what works - research and evidence review

- optimising impact and assessment - policy analysis and evaluation

- working together to improve outcomes North and South by island of Ireland partnership

- sharing knowledge and communicating the value of public health

- organisational excellence - setting and meeting high standards

The final position on the breakdown of the spend will be available at the end of year.

David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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1860. To ask the Minister for Health the breakdown of the additional funding allocated in budget 2021 to Health Ireland; and the way in which it was spent. [35660/21]

Frank Feighan (Sligo-Leitrim, Fine Gael)
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The Healthy Ireland Fund was established in 2017. This amount of funding increased to €10 million in 2021. Elements of the Fund are managed by Pobal on behalf of the Department to fund the delivery of local actions in key national Healthy Ireland policy areas.

Healthy Ireland also supports a number of key national initiatives, including –

- Active School Flag, - ‘Healthy Ireland at Your Library’ initiative, - Healthy Clubs and Healthy Campuses initiatives, - Healthy Workplace Framework, - Healthy Ireland Survey, and - Initiatives for increasing in physical activity in the community, in partnership with Sport Ireland.

A significant portion of the additional funding in 2021 was provided for Phase 1 of the Sláintecare Healthy Communities Programme, which seeks to improve the health and wellbeing of individuals in the most disadvantaged areas by addressing the wider determinants of health. The Programme is due to launch in Q4 2021.

The final position on the breakdown of the spend will be available at the end of year.

David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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1861. To ask the Minister for Health the breakdown of the additional funding allocated in Budget 2021 to general practitioner diagnostics; and the way in which it was spent. [35661/21]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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In Budget 2021, significant investment of €25m was allocated to implement a programme of structured access to diagnostics services for GPs. The aim of this initiative is to address the situation whereby patients can be inappropriately referred to hospital Emergency or Outpatient Departments to access diagnostics, thus exacerbating ED overcrowding or necessitating excessive waiting times for patients to access the required scans.

The GP Access to Diagnostics Scheme was successfully launched in January of this year. As of the most recently available data from the HSE in early May, there had been a total of 22,051 scans of various modalities provided. Almost 70% of these were MRI scans, over 16% were X-Rays, just over 9% were CT scans and slightly over 4% were DEXA scans.

The very latest information on the scheme is unfortunately not available due to the ongoing effects of the recent cyber-attack on the HSE’s ICT systems. However, the number of scans and tests which have been provided at this date can be expected to be significantly higher than the May figures, particularly as the service is currently available to the full population.