Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
FORMER MINISTER ALAN Kelly accused the government of carrying out an exercise in “window dressing” today as the Taoiseach and various ministers launched the latest HSE spending plan.
250 projects are being funded as part of the new capital plan for the health service, the government said this morning – including funding for 30 new primary care centres and two new emergency departments.
Leo Varadkar launched the plan at an event at the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dun Laoghaire, accompanied by Minister for Health Simon Harris, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe and a number of junior ministers.
Ministers sought to play down the National Children’s Hospital controversy as they outlined the planned investments, with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar insisting that some politicians had been “scaremongering” about the project’s cost overrun.
Varadkar said “totally fake” claims had been made on how other projects would be affected by the overspend.
A figure of €983 million for the new hospital at the St James’s site in Dublin was approved by government in 2017, but the Public Accounts Committee heard earlier this year that the cost could rise to over €2 billion. A PWC report on the controversy, published in April, put the likely final cost at €1.7 billion.
“Projects do get delayed from time to time but not because of the National Children’s Hospital, they get delayed for lots of different reasons,” Varadkar said the press briefing today.
“I think this is a useful figure for people to understand: The National Children’s Hospital is a very expensive project and it is costing more than we thought it would but it still only accounts for 0.4% of total government spending this year and less than 1.5% of the health budget.
We still have lots of money for other projects all over the country, 250 of them being set out in this programme today.
Asked whether a hard Brexit or global downturn could impede the plans being discussed at today’s event Varadkar said:
It is the case that developments in the wider economy like, for example, a hard Brexit or a slowdown internationally can impact on the public finances but we are actually in a very good position in terms of our public finances.
Kelly, the Labour Party’s health spokesperson, said that many of the projects listed in the plan announced today were already known about “or are underway”.
He pointed out that the 2019 plan was being published eight months into the year, and added, in reference to the children’s hospital overrun: “In media interviews today, the Minister for Health has said it is not true to say that projects are being delayed, it’s because many projects now won’t happen at all.”
He added: “The delay in this plan being published shows the Children’s Hospital overspend is coming home to roost.”
In his speech at the event, Harris said that no-one in the country would regret building the children’s hospital.
Whoever is health minister when it’s completed, politicians “will be tripping over themselves” to go to the launch, Harris said.
This morning’s announcement comes against a backdrop of continuing negative headlines on developments in the health service, including a report this morning that overcrowding for August was, according to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, the worst ever recorded in that month in Ireland.
Hospital waiting lists for outpatient appointments also reached a new high during the summer, with more than half a million people awaiting an appointment at the end of July.
The Taoiseach also answered questions about Brexit and tomorrow’s visit to Dublin of Mike Pence, where Brexit will also be high on the agenda.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Alan Kelly seems very good at criticising government policy but never seems to present any actual solutions. What is the labour party’s health care reform proposal and why didn’t they implement it when they were in government? Im tired of hearing politicians criticize things, any joe soap in a bar can do that (and do it much better), surely we pay our policians to come with actual solutions to actual problems not to virtue signal and posture.
@Damon16: Genuine question for you: why should Alan Kelly or any other opposition TD put forward solutions as the present Government TD’s campaigned on the promised of offering solutions and are getting handsomely paid to produce those same solutions? If the present Government are unable to present solutions they should step down or if is the fact that they are unable to do their jobs, which is more worrying.
@Jack Cass: Same reason that Opposition TD’s were elected, they weren’t elected to object to everything, they were also elected to find solutions, they can raise bills in the Dail just as much as a cabinet member
@Adam J: Maybe you haven’t noticed but opposition TD’s are not in Government. If Government Ministers/TD’s can’t do the job they are getting well paid to do, they should stand aside or their leader should make the decision for them. Also, why would I give my competitors answers to questions they are unable or unwilling to solve, kind of defeats the purpose of competition or in this case opposition.
This coming from the scheister who was in govt with fg implementing all the social cuts while claiming to be socialists.
Can’t wait to have a state of the art hospital with no staff due to HSE hiring freeze. It seems to me that frontline staff is the single biggest improvement that can be done for healthcare.
@Motherofthree: Hiring freeze? The HSE spends over 900,000 euro PER DAY hiring agency staff to keep some semblance of functionality in the hospitals.
Nothing said about the reduction in funding to numerous community projects and schemes and reduction in overtime in certain areas of the health service to pay for the bottomless money pit that is the national embarrassment children’s hospital. Or the inadequate lighting that cost millions for it or equipment that was advised to be rented but was bought at great expense and will be obsolete in a few years. Accountability??????
@Seán Dillon: Its back handed central, fat contracts awarded for whoever comes in with the bankhander…..and the taxpayer pays for poor value for money corrupt builds….should be criminal investigations into who is awarding the contacts, do what it takes, bug their phones, homes and watch all transactions from banks and what they are buying for years after…..we need examples to be made of these scrmbags but it will never happen in the land of the leprechauns.
Just another tale from ‘Lie-o’s’ state funded propaganda machine. He’s been mediocre at best in every position held by him.
Power is a drug according to AK47.
If the government hired in a window dresser it would probably cost a few hundred grand
Like all Governments aound the world play at being Robin Hood when in opposition and then acting like Cruella deVille when in power.
Leo lie? Never !
‘We have lots of money for other projects”. Really?
We are more in debt than we have ever been and Varadkar seems to think we’re rolling in it!
Spin doctors are two-a-penny in the Dail.
A lads
Its alan Kelly does anyone really take this guy serious, although wouldn’t it be wonderful if the government just turned around and said guess what we made a right balls of that ,an apologise.
I bet that hospital will be eventually privatised to an IMF pal of pal?
Spin city Fianna gael
Sun has got him out of the country have not seen him for awhile. Good colour white around the eyes
have your say