Health Service Recruitment Freeze: Motion [Private Members]
Dail Éireann — 2023-11-21
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Stephen Donnelly (FF), Wicklow

I move amendment No. 1:
To delete all the words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following:
"notes that:
— the Government has allocated €22.5 billion to the health budget for 2024;
— the Department of Health's additional allocation in Budget 2024 is nearly €2 billion;
— this includes an increase of €808 million in core current funding, €1,032 million in non-core current funding and an additional €120 million in capital funding;
— as of September 2023, there were 143,075 staff working in our health service, and this is an increase of 5,330 Whole-time Equivalent (WTE) year-to-date in 2023;
— the current Government has overseen and funded an unprecedented growth in health service recruitment, with a net growth of 23,263 (+19 per cent) staff since the beginning of 2020, and this includes:
— a net increase of 6,808 (+18 per cent) nurses and midwives;
— a net increase of 3,388 (+20per cent) health and social care professionals;
— a net increase of 866 (+27 per cent) consultants; and
— a net increase of 1,806 (+27 per cent) non-consultant hospital doctors;
— 2020, 2021 and 2022 achieved the three largest increases in the workforce since the foundation of the Health Service Executive (HSE), and this expansion has continued in 2023 with approximately 6,010 new posts funded;
— higher than planned recruitment activity has taken place across the HSE in 2023, with the HSE set to exceed its funded target (6,010 net new posts) by year end;
— recruitment is continuing for consultant appointments, graduate nurses and doctors in training, and exemptions also apply in disability in a list of specified front line and residential posts;
— where contracts have already issued and been accepted, these will be honoured; and
— the Government has allocated funding to ensure an additional net workforce growth of approximately 2,268 posts in 2024;
further notes that:
— Ireland has one of the highest ratios of nurses per 1,000 population in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), based on the register of actively practising nurses, and Ireland has 12.7 practising nurses per 1,000 whereas the OECD average is 9.2, and this means Ireland has the 5th highest number of practising nurses anywhere in the OECD; and
— since its introduction in March 2023, more than 1,000 consultants have already taken up the new public-only consultant contract, and this contract, which facilitates extended consultant presence on duty, results in reduced emergency admissions, more rapid and appropriate decision-making, shorter lengths of stay, better patient flow and improved outcomes for patients;
acknowledges that record recruitment into the health service is delivering real benefits to patients, such as:
— 2022 marked the first annual reduction in hospital waiting lists since 2015, and waiting lists are set to fall again in 2023, despite a huge increase in referrals onto waiting lists;
— the number of patients waiting over the Sláintecare targets (10-12 weeks) has fallen by circa 150,000, or 24 per cent, since Covid-19 Pandemic peaks;
— the significant increase in staffing across the health service has facilitated the delivery of many new services, including the Enhanced Community Care Programme and the Integrated Care Programme for Older Persons, which supports older people to live well in their own homes and communities without the need to access acute hospital settings;
— the large increase in our clinical workforce has enabled the rollout of many of our important national strategies, including cancer, maternity, trauma and many others; and
— the improved care being delivered by our expanded health workforce is resulting in improved health outcomes, including improved cancer survivorship and fewer deaths after strokes and heart attacks; and
further acknowledges that:
— if the level of growth in 2023, beyond funded levels of workforce growth, is allowed to continue uncontrolled, it would have significant financial implications; and
— the recruitment pause is part of a suite of control measures, including an instruction to reduce expenditure on agency staff and management consultants across the HSE and Section 38 organisations.".
Last Friday, the head of our national screening service, Fiona Murphy, posted the following words:
Amazing to be part of this. I never thought when I started in healthcare a long time ago that it would be possible to eliminate a cancer, especially one that was increasing. Now we will see it in our lifetime. Remarkable.
Kim, a patient advocate, described how much it meant to her to be at the event, having had cervical cancer herself. She said: "To see the progress that’s being made in eliminating this cruel disease is really something.” On Friday morning last, clinicians and patient advocates met to launch our roadmap to eliminate cervical cancer. We are only the fourth country in the world to announce such an ambitious target. The launch is so significant and positive, yet I did not see a single comment from senior figures in Sinn Féin to mark this momentous day. In contrast, the Sinn Féin motion talks about throwing in the towel. We have just heard Deputy Doherty talk about throwing in the towel. Throwing in the towel is collapsing the Northern Ireland Assembly in the face of Brexit nearly seven years ago.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2023-11-21/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:52:25+00:00
Sitting date: 2023-11-21