Results 41-60 of 1,120,015 for in 'Dáil debates' OR in 'Committee meetings' (speaker:Róisín Shortall OR speaker:Kieran O'Donnell OR speaker:Frank Feighan OR speaker:Aodhán Ó Ríordáin OR speaker:Colm Burke OR speaker:Darragh O'Brien OR speaker:Michael Collins OR speaker:Thomas Gould OR speaker:Paschal Donohoe OR speaker:Seán Crowe OR speaker:Damien English OR speaker:Neale Richmond OR speaker:Bernard Durkan OR speaker:Michael Fitzmaurice OR speaker:Denis Naughten OR speaker:Jim O'Callaghan OR speaker:Steven Matthews OR speaker:David Stanton OR speaker:Michael Lowry OR speaker:Martin Heydon OR speaker:Thomas Pringle OR speaker:Pádraig O'Sullivan OR speaker:Patricia Ryan OR speaker:Brendan Griffin)

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Colm Burke: There is a substantial increase in the overall budget for 2025. It is going to be the biggest budget ever in real terms. I will get the correct figure for the Deputy but the increase in total is the biggest figure. For instance, the total increase in funding is €40.5 million for the coming year. There is a €10.1 million increase for pay awards agreements. Some €5...

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Colm Burke: As the Deputy knows, we hope to have the supervised injection facility in Merchants Quay opened by the end of the year. I have been there and I have seen the progress being made in the building work. The target is to have it opened by early to mid-December. That is a really important facility that needs to be open. As the Deputy knows, the initial proposal on that was going back to 2019....

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Colm Burke: The Deputy should remember that 422 different centres around the country provide support for people with alcohol or drug addiction. Last year, 13,000 people received treatment for drug addiction and 8,000 people received treatment for alcohol addiction. Those figures are likely to go up. I have visited many of those centres over the last three to four months and each one of them is doing a...

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Colm Burke: The target date is for early to mid-December and the construction work has really progressed. I was down there recently - in the last three weeks - and I have seen the work that has been done. The people involved in it are doing everything possible to make sure we can reach that target date of somewhere in the first two weeks of December.

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Colm Burke: My understanding is that wastewater can be analysed to see the issue regarding the use of drugs. I am not into the detail of it but it is a mechanism that can be used to identify and to evaluate. Regarding the figures we have, we rely on centres such as all the HSE treatment centres around the country but we do not have a full picture in real terms of the people who are using substances. It...

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Bernard Durkan: On this question of a population increase by 2% or 84,000 every year since 2019, this means there has been cumulative population growth of 422,000 between 2019 and 2024. How much of that is indigenous growth and how much of it is due to inward migration?

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Bernard Durkan: We should have them because it gives a slanted impression. For instance, I do not see the number of people over 75 coming into the country as being in any way of the level referred to here but, by comparison, I see a huge number of young people coming in. I would say the ratio is very different from what these figures suggest. As well as that, I heard on a radio programme this morning...

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Colm Burke: On that point, many of the drug treatment centres are helping people to get access to medical services. I visited a number of centres. In one centre, for instance, a GP and nurses are going into the street and getting people into the centre for medical treatment. Many people who have had an adverse event in an accident and emergency department are now afraid of going to an accident and...

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Bernard Durkan: Cloncurry drug treatment centre in Enfield, which is on the border of my constituency, is a case in point. I invite the Minister of State to visit if he gets a chance. It would be important to the assessment of the need and threat.

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Seán Crowe: We will resume. Deputy Róisín Shortall has indicated she wishes to speak.

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Róisín Shortall: To pick up where I left off before I had to leave, regarding the handling of the budget going forward, the whole principle of the RHAs is that the area is to be profiled. There would be an allocation of funding based on established need, population size, socioeconomic profile and so on. I know there is a huge amount of work under way in the Department on that. We have not had a briefing...

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Róisín Shortall: The classic example is when people are ready to be discharged from hospital but they are not discharged because there may not be enough of a home care budget locally. There should be that discretion to spend money where it makes the most sense.

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Róisín Shortall: We had been getting regular briefings in the Department but we have not had any since before the summer.

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Róisín Shortall: It would be important to organise that. I will go back to the issue of nursing numbers. I am thinking specifically about community and public health nurses, who are vital, whether it is for older people, infants or others. There are major shortages there in terms of unfilled posts. Is anything being done to address that issue? Is anything being done to take it out of the rest of nursing...

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Róisín Shortall: It is the ultimate early intervention service. It is madness and very wrong if there are widespread vacancies. The presentation referred to facilitated access to hundreds of thousands of diagnostic scans for GP patients. Will the Minister clarify how that system works at the moment? I am hearing mixed views on it. In some cases, people are saying they can no longer go to a hospital for...

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Róisín Shortall: Is the Minister saying that anybody who is referred for diagnostic testing by a GP is entitled to that free of charge?

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Róisín Shortall: The point was made to me by somebody that they were going to a private provider because VHI did not reimburse if it was done in a hospital. What is the situation regarding that?

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Róisín Shortall: Is that for any diagnostic test?

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Róisín Shortall: Chair, can I have two minutes to discuss the drugs services? I will be very quick on this. There is a lot of concern across the board about community drugs task forces - local and regional drugs task forces. The allocation to them has more or less stayed static for several years. I think it is €4.2 million this year.

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Colm Burke: The total budget is €40.5 million. The social inclusion budget has increased by €40.5 million in two years.