The HSE is spending its money well and is “making progress,” the Public Expenditure Minister has insisted.

Paschal Donohoe was speaking to Newstalk Breakfast after demonstrators gathered outside University Hospital Limerick to protest the chronic patient overcrowding at its Emergency Department (ED).

All this week on Newstalk, listeners have been sharing their shocking experiences from the Limerick ED.

Yesterday, Limerick woman Teri Coffey said the “third-world conditions” at the facility made her dying mother’s last hours “absolutely horrendous”.

On Tuesday meanwhile, General Practice nurse Michelle spoke out about her mother’s “nightmare experience” – warning that conditions had left her with a “complete lack of dignity”.

University Hospital Limerick, 29-7-23. Image: Karlis D / Alamy

On Newstalk Breakfast this morning, Minister Paschal Donohoe said he “fully accepts” that Government needs to do better at some of the country’s ED’s – but insisted the HSE is “making progress”.

“We have made more funding available to the Department of Health to continue to build more hospital beds and if I look at the challenges that we have at the moment from a healthcare perspective, we are seeing, for many different healthcare procedures, the waiting lists beginning to fall,” he said.

“So we are making progress.

“But we absolutely accept that when it comes to the provision of emergency care within a number of our hospitals, we need to do better and I will continue to support Minister Donnelly and the Department of Health in trying to identify ways in which we can accelerate that progress and make better emergency care available in a number of our hospitals.”

HSE

Asked whether the HSE was spending its money well, he said: “Yes I believe it is but we always have questions as we do in relation to any funding that goes into any part of our public services regarding how can we spend that money better and how can we ensure that the budgeting for how we provide the public service is as strong as possible.”

“The reason I believe, by and large, we are spending that money well is we are seeing health outcomes improve,” he said.

“Year by year we are seeing health outcomes improve in our country - if you get a stroke, if you get cancer - we are seeing that improve and we are seeing waiting lists reduce.”

Hospital overcrowding

He admitted that the care in some of Ireland’s EDs is “not always what one would want it to be” adding that the Government will continue to invest in a bid to improve things.

Meanwhile, Minister Donoho also defended the salary being paid to the Department of Health Secretary General Robert Watt – which is due to rise from €275,869 to €326,000.

“I know it is a lot of money, I fully accept that - it is more than a minister would earn or a Taoiseach would earn - but the work is essential,” he said.

“I believe the salary that we have for the Secretary General of the Department of Health is the appropriate salary for a post that is that important to our public services.

“We keep on making the point that we want the right people doing the right work in our public service and I believe we have to reflect that in a small number of posts – including that role.”

The Health Minister Stephen Donnelly yesterday visited UHL and announced a number of measures he hopes will ease the overcrowding crisis at the hospital.

Earlier this week, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald accused the Government of “consciously underfunding health”.