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PUBLIC EXPENDITURE AND Reform Minister Brendan Howlin has insisted that the HSE will make the savings the government has committed to in the health sector despite reports that its financial deficit has hit €280 million for the first five months of the year.
Howlin was speaking after a report in the Irish Times on Saturday which said that the Health Service Executive (HSE) had informed the Department of Health that its financial deficit could hit €500 million by the end of the year.
Health Minister James Reilly held talks with Howlin, Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Finance Minister Michael Noonan last week about the overspend and the Labour Party minister insisted that targets set by the budget would be met.
“We have to have control of expenditure and I have had discussions with the Department of Health,” Howlin told RTÉ’s This Week programme, saying concerns about the overspend were echoed by Reilly.
“We are taking measures to ensure that the decisions made to make the savings required across all the areas the Government determined last year will be fully implemented by the HSE,” he added.
Howlin also said that despite concerns about the overspend, not only would savings targets be met but additional posts that were promised in mental health and primary care areas would be delivered.
“As far I’m concerned all those posts will be delivered,” he told the programme and repeating his view that savings targets would be reached: “We will drive to achieve those and we will achieve them.”
On Morning Ireland today, Fianna Fáil’s health spokesperson Billy Kelleher said that the news about the potential deficit was “very alarming” and was heavily critical of the government.
“The broader issue here that the Budget was presented last year was almost fraudulent because we knew the savings that had been identified could not be achieved,” he told the programme.
Kelleher said that he had warned that raising money through charges on private health insurers and reducing the cost of medicine could not be achieved.
He warned that failure to address the problem would result in hospital closures and added that the HSE needed to be less reliant on agency staff in nursing and other frontline services.
FF now showing concern about the health system is enough to give thousands heart attacks. When did this new concern for people in hospital start?. For 20 years, they have focused on jobs for the boys and giving contracts in the health sector to friends companies, often to ones that were set up especially to get the contract.
Is it any wonder our health system is a vastly wasteful and over managed one.
HSE says it’ll have a €500m overspend, and is already 50% of the way there by May 31. Howlin is living in an alternative reality if he thinks it’ll come in on target.
it says 500 billion on this…free private jets for everyone in the hse???
A great way to save money is not to deliver treatment or surgery people need. Since the NTPF was scrapped & replaced with the SDU (Special Delivery Unit) thousands upon thousands of very sick people have been abandoned by the HSE & left in limbo. The reason they were being treated under the NTPF scheme was because they had been waiting exorbitant lengths of time for surgery in public hospitals. Then it was scrapped & they went back onto public waiting lists. I was due to have neurosurgery just before it was scrapped & was transferred back to Beaumont hospital as a so called ‘urgent’ case. A year later I finally get to see a neurosurgeon (2 weeks ago) who confirmed i need surgery but as they are running way over capacity they can only handle emergency cases. I have to wait until I am seriously ill before they can operate (being unable to walk or function is not serious enough!) They will NOT put me on a waiting list as then I can apply to have it done in Europe so I’m left in no mans land. What’s even more disgusting is that if I had health insurance I soul be over the surgery by now and probably back in work. But I had to give it up as I was too sick to work & could afford it!!!!
So if the HSE fails to come in on budget will Reilly lose a gold star or will his salary be docked for failing to do his job?
Wheres it coming from the bag of jumping beans??
This government are cowards the same as the last they won’t do what needs to be done
Scrap the CPA ,while protecting the low earners ie those below 40k ,we have hospital consultants earning 3times what they do on Germany .The top man in the HSE earns 400k more than OBAMA and MERKEL put together
We have 500 staff in HR in the HSE another 600 in the dept of health discussing policy
We could protect the nurses and doctors the people we need and get rid of half the pen pushers,but that takes guts,guts to take on the unions and scrap Croke park but this government is gutless except when it came to easy decisions were people were not unionised such as attacking the unmarried mothers or the disability allowance
Predictive text…..’if I had health insurance I would be over surgery’….and I had to give it up because I couldn’t afford it!!
The health system is a poison chalice for whoever is there. If we had an endless amount off cash we would still have a weak system. doc and nurses are doin fantastic work all over the country considering the pressure they are under
If anyone i care about that is sick and suffers even more at the hands of this little piglet then he better mind where he walks he is not a man he is a weasel..they let there sick suffer elderly die and young and disabled fight for basic human rights Howlin is not a real person he is a sick minded weasel no wonder he chewed he’s way to the top he is surrounded by other vermon that gnaw at the heart and soul of this country and the good people who live here ..he is not Irish and he’s not a man he gave his nuts away along time ago just like his country id rather struggle than be like them.. my parents would be sickened if i turned out like him and his vermon..looking at them makes me feel better about myself…
HSE needs to spend money to retain basic services. Who cares if they miss these ‘targets’… We must invest in our services in order to grow our economy. These targets can be disregarded because the real culprits (Banks) should suffer any cuts. We have a deficit of 1000% of GDP because of bailing our ponzi Banks. Let the bondholders burn.
Unfortunately most of the bond holders have been paid off at this stage Rob. Even the unsecured senior bond holders I believe €1 billion was paid over to some of the last bond holders last week. That money could have gone to the health service now it money gone for good never to be recovered. Strange priorities in need in Leinster House.
They could also save a few million a year if they stopped fluoridating the water supply and made parents responsible for their childrens oral health. It all adds up.
sorry. . “allowed parents to be responsible” for their childrens oral health.
*deed
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