Eoghan Kenny (Cork North-Central, Labour)
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1888. To ask the Minister for Health if her Department is reviewing the future funding model for public hospitals to ensure equitable access to care across regions; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [58995/25]

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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A key goal of the transition to Health Regions is to enable a population-based approach to how services are planned, funded and delivered. From 2025, each region receives a single budget which spans both acute and community services.

The government’s goal is that wherever you live in Ireland, you should have timely access to high-quality care. This has been emphasised in the Department of Health’s 2026 Letter of Determination. As such, each Health Region will receive a core current funding allocation for the needs of its population, with the flexibility to invest where it will have the greatest impact. This approach enables regions to address some of their own unique challenges – whether in diagnostics, community care, or hospital access – and to plan services in a way that reflects local realities and needs of the day.

This approach will be further enabled through the Department’s development of a Population-Based Resource Allocation (PBRA) model. This model will adjust regional allocations on the basis of demographic indicators of population health need (population size, age, sex), as well as deprivation level and distance to services (rurality). The goal of PBRA is to fairly and equitably distribute the available healthcare funding to the six Health Regions according to population health need and the cost of providing care to meet those needs.

Implementation of PBRA will be an iterative and multi-year process. Regional budgets for 2026 will be accompanied by a shadow PBRA budget on the basis of population demographics (size, age, sex). This will enable regions to monitor actual spending patterns against a population-based allocation. Following this exercise, it is anticipated that PBRA will be implemented from 2027.

2026 therefore marks a critical first step in population-focused funding methodology, aligning funding with need, and in empowering Health Regions to deliver better outcomes.