HealthAn average investment of just under €150 million a year will be required in healthcare to provide new beds where expenditure has been growing at an "exceptional pace" in recent years, the ESRI said. Apart from this investment, upgrading and replacing non-bed facilities will be necessary, it said.
"It seems appropriate that investment of the same magnitude to the additional acute beds will be required," the ESRI said.
Given the recent investment in information and communications technology, such funding should be reduced and reallocated. Further investment in the nursing degree programme, which has received a high level of expenditure, should be limited, it said.
To speed up the provision of new facilities and cut down costs, exploiting standardised designs should be explored, the ESRI said, adding this approach had been started with schools.
In the area of childcare, the quality improvement/training budget should be increased, the ESRI said. Budget 2006 allocated €14 million for training 17,000 childcare workers over a four-year period , which the ESRI said was considerably lower than the equal opportunities childcare programme and amounts to only €824 to each training place.
It said the costs of replacing community employment (CE) workers with trained staff would be higher than the €24.6 million of CE funding in 2005.
The ESRI said experience suggests it would be difficult for many voluntary/community providers to become self-sufficient while meeting the social inclusion aims and providing care to the highest standard. It recommends the ratio of current supports to capital supports should be maintained.
