Health service to be bailed out with additional €1 billion this year

The health service is to be bailed out with an additional €1 billion being provided in 2023. The Cabinet signed off on €4 billion more in supplementary estimates for various Government departments on Tuesday.

The decision means the total amount of extra funding to be provided to 31 departments and State agencies will hit €6bn this year. There is to be €960 million in extra funding for health to fund increased demand and activity, particularly in acute hospitals.

This is about €500 million less than Health Service Executive (HSE) chief executive Bernard Gloster indicated last month would be needed. He told the Oireachtas health committee that the deficit in the health service would be “in the territory of €1.4 billion to €1.5 billion”.

The final gross allocation to health will be about €22.4 billion this year following the additional funding.

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On the question of whether the €960 million sum would be sufficient, a Government spokesman said: “It is what is agreed at this point. It is what the Government has allocated. We expect the health service to operate within its capacity and the available resources as well.”

Some €1.1 billion of the €4 billion in extra spending approved by Cabinet will fund cost-of-living measures announced in the budget including additional social welfare payments like the Christmas bonus and the three €150 energy credits for households.

Another €850 million will be provided to the Department of Education to accelerate the school building programme and for additional pay costs.

The Department of Children has been allocated another €170 million to provide more funding for Tusla, the Child and Family Agency and disability services.

By the end of 2023 some €1.3 million in extra funding will also have been provided to a number of departments providing services to people arriving to Ireland fleeing the war in Ukraine.

Separately, minister for housing Darragh O’Brien received Government approval to continue the Housing for All plan’s land acquisition fund. Some €114 million was allocated to it.

The fund will be administered by the Housing Agency with the aim of strategic acquisition of sites for social as well as affordable housing, particularly in Dublin and Galway.

Mr O’Brien also got approval to increase the number of social housing acquisitions from 200 to 1,500 in 2024, to continue the tenant in situ scheme and reduce the risk of homelessness due to landlords selling properties.

Tánaiste and Minister for Defence Micheál Martin, meanwhile, welcomed the publication of the detailed implementation plan for the Report of the Commission on the Defence Forces.

Mr Martin said he is “deeply committed to the transformation of the Defence Forces into a modern, fit for purpose organisation”.

Cabinet also signed off on a Double Taxation Protocol between Ireland and Jersey, amending a previous agreement from 2009.

Most of Ireland’s double taxation agreements are being modified to incorporate new measures to prevent so-called Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS), where multinationals exploit loopholes to avoid paying tax.

Because the current double taxation agreement between Ireland and Jersey was limited in nature, some of the new anti-BEPS minimum standards and best practices cannot apply and a new protocol is needed.

It was negotiated bilaterally with Jersey and a similar approach was followed in the cases of Guernsey, the Isle of Man, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

Ministers separately agreed not to oppose a motion being put forward in the Seanad by Fianna Fáil senators on artificial intelligence (AI) and emerging technologies.

Among other measures the motion calls for the setting up of new Oireachtas committees – one on AI and another entitled a Committee of the Future – in the next Dáil term.