Catherine Callaghan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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170. To ask the Minister for Health to explain the benefits of a multi-annual funding approach for the health service and how this will be linked to better outcomes for patients. [9881/25]

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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The Programme for Government commits to develop a multi-annual funding approach for our health service, which will be linked to productivity, staff levels and the delivery of services for patients.

The Government has increased the Health budget by 40% over the five years to €25.75 billion in an effort to produce better health outcomes through initiatives such as Sláintecare for our citizens. This represents the equivalent of spending €5,000 for every person in Ireland.

We need to reform and develop new services like:

• the Enhanced Community Care programme for chronic disease management
• local injury units to provide an alternative away from our Acute hospitals
• surgical hubs to take elective care away from our demand led busy Emergency Departments
• increasing digital, virtual services and usage of AI technologies

This approach aligns funding with more strategic planning and resource allocation and provides much needed certainty of future funding over longer-term projects.

Taking the example of hospital overcrowding and trolleys in our emergency departments, there are multiple solutions that need to be implemented to permanently resolve this issue.

• increasing access to Injury Units and community services outside the hospital setting to reduce attendance at our accident and emergency departments,
• bringing more community beds into the system to allow people to be discharged from our hospitals safely and quicker, freeing up hospital beds,
• having more senior decision-makers on site, especially at weekends to help solve challenges such as improving usage of our bed capacity.

Another benefit of multi-annual budgets is that enhanced financial control facilitates creates greater accountability along with more efficient use of available resources. Cutting wasteful spending will allow more financial and operational resources to be targeted to higher priority areas facilitating faster delivery of new or enhanced services.

The recent two-year expenditure agreement between my Department and the Department of Public Expenditure NDP Delivery and Reform is a good first step in the right direction, extending the planning window in undertaking projects and providing certainty than before to the sector and allowing for focus on financial performance within agreed limits.

I see multi-annual budgets and greater accountability forming the basis for driving better financial and operational performance. Living within our budget is central to the credibility of the health service and providing best value for money will allow us to deliver new and enhanced services to our people.