€158m bailout for Department of Health

More savage cuts to the health service could be on the cards as the Government admitted it will have to bail out the Department of Health again as its overspend skyrocketed to almost €160m in first five months of the year.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny admitted the Department of Health would need another supplementary budget by the autumn, but he again reaffirmed his confidence in Health Minister James Reilly, despite the minister facing pressure from his own party TDs to step aside.

His comments came as Mr Reilly earlier told the Dáil that his department’s overspend has so far amounted to some €158m for the first five months of this year.

It remains unknown if the further bailout for his budget will come from other departments or from savings and further cutbacks in health services. Supplementary budgets had been necessary for numerous years, the minister said yesterday, amid criticism from the opposition benches.

Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin argued that the Department of Health had never really signed up for savings ordered in this year’s budget. These were “false figures”, he declared, and had resulted in huge problems for the health services.

Mr Martin said reports yesterday that the head of the HSE and Department of Health were in disagreement over recruitment showed that there was “dysfunctionality” in services.

There was a “real crisis” in services with reports that 253 consultant posts had yet to be filled, he said.

Morale was low among workers and safety of patients was at risk, the Fianna Fáil leader declared.

Mr Kenny defended services, saying major issues were being tackled in the sector.

Earlier, Dr Reilly said the HSE deficit stood at €158m at the end of May and 2014 had been a “particularly challenging year for the health services”. “Due to cuts of €3.3bn in the overall budget since 2008, serious decisions had to be taken about how the health service was run,” Dr Reilly told the Dáil. He described the HSE as “an absolutely devalued brand” which the Government was “committed to replacing”.

Fianna Fáil’s health spokesman, Billy Kelleher, said Mr Reilly did “not live in the real world” when it came to the budgetary estimate process. He said that every year the minister “presents a flawed budget to the House” and this year’s budget includes €108m in unspecified savings. Mr Kelleher said there was an “issue with the minister’s credibility with his Cabinet colleagues in the delivery of sufficient funding to provide a budget that will sustain health services”.

Mr Reilly said Fianna Fáil failed to keep within the annual health budgets for 12 of its 14 years in office.

Elsewhere, Sinn Féin accused the minister and Mr Kenny of dodging questions about a conflict of interest the head of a hospitals group had with his shares in a firm that was given a lucrative contract in the west/north west region.

The party said it wanted the full facts and a report published around the situation which saw hospital group chairman Noel Daly resign from his post.