Tánaiste Micheál Martin has dismissed claims about a “so-called recruitment embargo” in the health service and said that Ireland has the second highest number of working nurses per hundred thousand population in Europe after Finland.
He said nurses were exempt from the “recruitment pause”, 3,068 had been recruited since May 2023 and overall there were 28,500 more staff in the health service than at the start of 2020.
Speaking in the Dáil on Thursday, Mr Martin said “there was a very substantial increase in health spending in the first three to four months of this year. It is substantial in its own right because of the budget.
“Yet, even in advance of what was profiled in the budget, we are looking at very substantial increases in health expenditure. More than €7.5 billion extra has been allocated to the health service over the last four years.”
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There were 4,200 additional healthcare professionals along with more than 3,000 more doctors and dentists. These are very significant increases, and the level of expenditure in health continues to grow apace,” he said, “mainly in terms of the acute and trauma services. That’s the reality.”
On Wednesday, the Department of Health reported that health spending is running at more than €500 million over budget for the first four months of this year, with approximately 75 per cent of that in the acute hospital sector.
Sinn Féin finance spokesman Pearse Doherty said health staff were applying for jobs and attending interviews but were then being told there were no jobs because of the recruitment embargo.
A speech and language therapist had been offered a “dream job” but it was withdrawn because of the staffing freeze, he said. Mr Doherty said five months into the new year, the Government had not yet approved the workforce plan for 2024.
He pointed to a members’ survey conducted by the Irish Nurses and Midwives’ Organisation (INMO) which showed that 70 per cent were concerned that patient safety was at risk because of staffing shortfalls.
“I don’t accept that all,” the Tánaiste said, adding that “we need to focus on deployment and on outcomes”.
Mr Doherty said that 63 per cent had considered leaving their jobs in the past month, while one in five had attended their own doctors suffering with stress. He added that as a consequence many young clinicians were emigrating even though “we need them here”.
He said health staff were sitting interviews and then being told that there was no job because of the recruitment embargo.”
The Donegal TD said the embargo had stopped people moving home from abroad and was “making matters go from bad to worse”.
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