Claims of recruitment freeze in health do not stack up – Tanaiste

Claims of a recruitment freeze in Ireland’s health system “could not be further from the truth”, Tanaiste Michael Martin has said.

Speaking in the Dail, Mr Martin said health expenditure had “grown exponentially” in Ireland but added there were organisational and reform issues to be looked at in hospitals.

People Before Profit-Solidarity TD Mick Barry said trade unions were protesting against a “recruitment cap imposed on the HSE by your Government”.

Mr Barry said were 98 patients on trolleys or chairs at Cork University Hospital (CUH) on Tuesday, the highest number since the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation started collecting trolley numbers 18 years ago.

He said: “If there are 98 patients on trolleys in CUH at the start of October, how many await us in the depths of winter?”

Mr Barry added: “Your pay and number strategy is a disaster.

“It is a recruitment ban by any other name.

“Are you going to lift it before winter or are you going to allow this dire situation to go from bad to worse?”

Mr Martin said there are 28,000 more people working in the health service than there had been at the beginning of 2020.

He said that the picture of cuts described by Mr Barry “doesn’t stack up”.

Mr Martin added: “The argument that you’re putting forward in respect of a recruitment ceiling freeze couldn’t be further from the truth.

“The health service has been funded to expand its numbers both this year and next year, and funding has been allocated to enable that to happen.”

The Tanaiste added: “There is no doubt that health expenditure has increased exponentially.

“Yes, population has grown as well, I accept that and there’s pressure on hospitals.

“There’s an organisational issue as well that we have to look at, and there’s a reform issue that we have to look at.

“If you are increasing every year, which we more or less are by one and a half billion (euro) every year, we have to evaluate, we have to look at outcome and how that correlates with input.

“The HR management within the HSE needs to be looked at, in my view.

“There has been a delegation to regional executives in terms of the prioritisation of resources.

“But that could lead to a postcode lottery type situation and that is something we need to avoid.”