HEALTH OFFICIALS ‘PRETTY FURIOUS’

Funding to high-spending department is slashed

SENIOR figures in the Department of Health are said to be ‘pretty furious’ about their allocation in the Budget, the Irish Daily Mail can reveal.

A comparison of this year’s Budget with last year’s shows a decline in funding for the high-spending department.

Part of this is accounted for by the decision to reallocate disability funding from the Department of Health to the Department of Children, resulting in a €2.6billion reduction in the overall health spend.

However, even allowing for this, senior sources say only €1.8billion was then allocated in additional funding for the department, with €800million of this needed simply to pay for existing initiatives.

The €1billion is for ‘one-off money’ for waiting list action plans and Covid-19 funding. Only €100million was allocated for ‘new measures’.

By comparison €254million was allocated for new measures last year.

‘We’re pretty furious,’ said a senior health source. ‘Besides the obvious overall cut to our budget, there is of course the inflation effect on that budget, so in reality it’s a savage blow to the department.

‘We do think it odd that Paschal Donohoe was years in the Department of Public Expenditure with spiralling health budgets, and he never seemed particularly concerned with the fiscal performance of Fine Gael health ministers like Leo Varadkar. Yet the first time he comes up against a Fianna Fáil health minister, he takes this route,’ the source added.

‘To us it appears the Department of Public Expenditure has given up on health just 18 months out from a general election.’

Senior sources in Government were split on the matter last night, with one well-placed source admitting that this year’s Budget was a ‘pause and take stock kind of piece’.

Asked if it would deal with an ageing and growing population, one person close to the negotiations said: ‘This Budget and the supplementary may do that. We’ve had three years of very expansionary budgets in health. This is probably a pause and take stock kind of piece.

‘We couldn’t keep expanding at the rate we were expanding. It just wasn’t feasible. But we do have an ageing population and a pent-up demand from Covid. The actual numbers on waiting lists are exceeding even our best estimates. That’s where the focus is going to have to be – maintaining existing service.’

The same source said it was the ‘correct synopsis’ that there were no new measures announced in this year’s Budget and that there was a need to bed down announcements made in the past several years.

Another source said: ‘What’s happening is that we’re dealing with the full-year costs of measures that have been introduced – free GP care (for six- and seven-yearolds), medical card up to median age, and drug costs.’

Senior sources have said the Department of Health would have liked to extend free contraception scheme to include those aged up 35. At present the scheme will increase by one year.

The total new development money is €100million, and beds in new surgical hubs will take €30million of that.

‘There’s money in there for CAMHS. That’s a few million. We would have liked to do a bit more, but there was a desire to maintain existing levels of services,’ the source said.

It is understood that a range of other policy areas such as the ambulance strategy, the women’s health action plan and others will have to be funded within existing resources. ‘That’s just the reality of it.’

This does not include the supplementary budget which has yet to be signed off between the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and the Department of Health, which will be agreed before the end of the year.

Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe had repeatedly warned over the summer that the Department of Health overspend was a serious problem.

It now appears that the minister has refused to allocate significant additional funding to the department this year after recent budgets sent costs spiralling.

Mr Donohoe also warned that there would be increased levels of financial reporting expected in return for what he called ‘record levels of health investment’.

‘The value of this record level of health investment needs to be fully realised with a focus on productivity, better financial governance and consolidating funded capacity,’ Mr O’Donohoe said.

‘Accordingly, this resilience funding will be accompanied by a programme of initiatives to improve financial oversight across the health system, as part of the progressive reform agenda.

‘This programme will be finalised by year end,’ he added.

David Cullinane, Sinn Féin’s health spokesman, pointed out that the chief executive of the HSE, Bernard Gloster, had told the Oireachtas last month that the HSE would need €2.4billion simply to stand still.

This comprises a projected cash shortfall of €1.1billion, and the organisation is expected to incur an income and expenditure deficit of €1.4billion.

‘He got less than €1.4billion in new measures,’ Mr Cullinane said. ‘They essentially haven’t funded the deficit for next year, they’ve fudged it.’