Irish Examiner view: Need for greater responsibility

HSE spending

Anne Rabbitte, Minister of State at the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth.

Disabilities Minister Anne Rabbitte outlined her frustrations yesterday with the HSE, with bureaucracy the root cause.

If there is one institution in Irish life synonymous with bureaucracy it is the HSE, and Ms Rabbitte’s particular issue is that a portion of €22m allocated for disability capital projects won’t be spent this year.

The capital budget for 2023 is the biggest it has been in years, and she does not want unspent capital funding when there are projects that can be funded and which would help families access services and supports.

“Ultimately, my aim is to create more capacity in the system,” she said, “and bureaucracy appears to be slowing it down.”

A parallel development offers an interesting counterpoint to this story. 

Irish Examiner readers will have yesterday seen warnings that homecare, disability, and addiction services are among organisations “facing collapse” because they cannot recruit staff.

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One obstacle is the fact that State-funded charities are paying workers 10% less than similarly qualified colleagues in the public sector due to paycuts made during the financial crisis that have never been reversed.

Capital funding — which is what Ms Rabbitte is referring to — and current expenditure, such as worker salaries, are two different areas.

But these two stories are also closely related: If the projects the minister wants built are completed in due course, is there any guarantee that they can be staffed properly given these issues with recruitment?

This is a good example not so much of the left hand not knowing what the right is doing within the HSE as an indication that there may be just too many organs for anyone within the organisation to keep track of.

Consequently, given the sheer size of the budget allocated to the health services — last March, the National Service Plan was allocated a budget of €21.124bn for this purpose — there needs to be greater responsibility taken for health expenditure within Government and money allocated must be spent. 

Every day is a rainy day for some families in desperate need of support.