{"id":541400,"date":"2026-06-18T10:19:25","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T10:19:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/541400\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T10:19:25","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T10:19:25","slug":"recent-hospital-budget-increases-not-fiscally-sustainable-minister-for-health-warns-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/541400\/","title":{"rendered":"Recent hospital budget increases \u2018not fiscally sustainable\u2019, Minister for Health warns \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is not fiscally sustainable for the State to continue to increase the budgets of hospitals at the same level as seen over recent years, the Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill<\/a> has said.<\/p>\n

In a letter to the D\u00e1il<\/a> Public Accounts Committee<\/a> (PAC) she also maintained that over-recruitment of more than 900 staff \u2013 undertaken locally by hospitals without formal approval from the Health Service Executive<\/a> or Department of Health<\/a> \u2013 up to 2024 had resulted in \u201crecurring unfunded pay costs that contributed materially to financial pressures\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Minister\u2019s letter was in reply to warnings set out by three of the country\u2019s main voluntary hospitals at a meeting of the PAC in April in which they said they were facing a funding shortfall of more than \u20ac120 million between them this year.<\/p>\n

Carroll MacNeill said she fully acknowledged the pressures being faced by the acute hospital system including growth in demand, workforce challenges and the rising cost of delivering care. However, she said she wanted to provide some \u201cadditional context regarding hospital financial performance, oversight arrangements and the actions expected of hospitals in managing resources\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirstly, it should be noted that the acute hospital system has seen a significant and sustained increase in funding in recent years. <\/p>\n

\u201cBetween 2022 and 2026, budgets across the voluntary hospitals increased by \u20ac1.1 billion (36 per cent) overall, including increases of \u20ac175 million (42 per cent) for the Mater<\/a>, \u20ac137 million (46 per cent) for Tallaght<\/a> and \u20ac119 million (32 per cent) for St Vincent\u2019s<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cOver the same period, growth in hospital funding has outpaced increases in community-based services.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile this investment reflects real growth in demand and rising costs, it is not fiscally sustainable to continue with funding increases of this scale. <\/p>\n

\u201cConsistent with Sl\u00e1intecare<\/a>, the medium-term challenge for the health service is therefore not simply to continue expanding hospital budgets but to achieve better value and improved patient flow by shifting appropriate care from hospitals into community and primary care settings.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Minister also said hospital output had not increased in line with the rise in staffing levels. She said as a result significant scope remained to improve productivity and throughput within existing resources. She said this was \u201ccentral to financial sustainability\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cComposite activity is a single measure that brings together the main types of hospital work \u2013 inpatient admissions, day-case treatments, outpatient appointments and emergency department attendances \u2013 and weights them to reflect how resource intensive they are. Looked at this way, the data shows that growth in hospital output has not kept pace with growth in staffing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carroll MacNeill said across hospitals dealing with complex care \u2013 known as model four facilities \u2013 staffing increased by 36 per cent between 2019 and 2025, while composite activity increased by only 10 per cent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe same pattern is evident in individual hospitals: in the Mater, staffing grew by 41 per cent while composite activity increased by 12 per cent; in Tallaght, staffing grew by 39 per cent while composite activity increased by 17 per cent; and in St Vincent\u2019s, staffing grew by 35 per cent while composite activity increased by only two 2 per cent.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mater hospital told the PAC in April that without additional HSE supplementary funding last year it would have been insolvent.<\/p>\n

The Mater, St Vincent\u2019s University Hospital in south Dublin and Tallaght Hospital all told the committee that the initial financial allocations provided by the HSE this year would not cover the cost of providing services and paying staff and suppliers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is not fiscally sustainable for the State to continue to increase the budgets of hospitals at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":541401,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,4767,3496,18,13,14,6,2450,19,17,5002,11,12,15,16,83539,5,4766,17419,34226,122700,87598,7,8],"class_list":["post-541400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-dail-eireann","tag-department-of-health","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-health-service-executive-hse","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jennifer-carroll-macneill","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-mater-hospital","tag-news","tag-oireachtas","tag-public-accounts-committee","tag-slaintecare","tag-st-vincent-s-university-hospital","tag-tallaght-university-hospital","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116770607406783096","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/541401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}