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THE HSE HAS published its plan for 2017, saying it will spend €13.9 billion on day-to-day expenses.
That level of funding is an overall increase of €458.6m (3.4%) when compared to 2016, but this includes just €36.5m to fund new service developments.
Separately, a provision of €439m is available in capital funding in 2017, comprising €384m for building, equipping and furnishing of health facilities, with a further €55m for ICT.
The plan projects that while there will be 24,000 fewer medical cards, there will be 50,000 more GP visit cards.
HSE Director General Tony O’Brien said while launching the plan, there were “a number of risks”. These include increased demand and controlling staff numbers.
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While it promises a 5% reduction in waiting times, the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) says it offers “no respite”.
“When the HSE itself starts pre-warning about budget shortages before the Service Plan is produced, you know you are facing a problem.
“Unfortunately, the HSE warnings are well placed this year and we have no confidence that patients will get the care and attention they deserve or that professionals will get the resources they require to do their jobs effectively.”
Justin Moran of Age Action said that the plan was “very disappointing” and said it ignores the crisis in home care supports.
The National Association of General Practitioners (NAGP) said that the HSE’s commitment to make a decisive shift to GP-led primary care is not reflected in plan. They say this is reflected in a budget increase of €30.8m in primary care to an increase of €118.4m for acute hospitals.
The plan has been published on a day when the INMO’s Trolleywatch counts 536 people on trolleys or waiting for admission to a bed.
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Are they talking about forests or the sterile non-native conifer plantations which blight our landscape and threaten the survival of species such as Hen Harrier? Judging the reasoning behind the groups in question I’m reckoning they’re talking about the plantations rather than native or semi-natural woodlands rich in biodiversity.
That’s a great pic of lough Tay in county Wicklow. A member of the Guinness family has a wonderful house down there, although he may have passed away. I have cycled and hiked over these Wicklow mountains and really feel that they should be covered in forests. This land was covered at one time with oak and other trees. The govt needs to get the finger out and start to increase Irish woodlands. If you leave the land alone the trees will come back naturally.
Jim Jameson
Why would you need to be softened up for a Government sale of the collet harvesting rights? Have you seen the appalling Annual Reports over the last few years?
In 2011 they had sales of 259 m and only managed a profit of 19.9m and this is with free land a story wen a massive one million acres.
Worse than this their pension fund has a shortfall of nearly a hundred million Euro. How do you manage that trick with just one thousand employees? The answer is simple ……..make it a publicly owned enterprise and they’ll just milk it for all it’s worth.
See the harvesting rights for up to two billion and let someone else do the real job of managing the business as that clearly hasn’t been done for some time.
We get to keep the land. We get money for new investment in the economy and the workers get their pension funds fixed.
With proper management exports will increase and the State will accrue further profit taxes.
Simple.
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