This is an issue for enterprise, social protection and health. GPs are private practitioners. Many of them have contracts with the HSE to provide public services. Services provided outside of these are a private matter. The Medical Council is there to protect the public. Part of this is registering doctors as quickly as may be, and part of it is making sure that doctors operate to a very high standard. I encourage th…
TDs / Jennifer Carroll MacNeill
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill
Minister for Health
Portrait: © Houses of the Oireachtas (Oireachtas (Open Data) PSI Licence) · source file
0
questions asked
Members of the Government answer questions rather than ask them
182,871
words spoken in the chamber
179,569 as a minister, 3,302 as a TD
355
votes recorded
Each Yes, No or Abstained in a recorded vote
From the Dáil chamber only: committee meetings are not in this archive.
Members of the Government answer parliamentary questions rather than ask them, so this page lists none of theirs.
Month by month
Low months are usually recesses, when the Dáil does not sit. The archive runs to 22 October 2026.
Contributions to debates 710 in all
Dec 2024Oct 2026
Show as a table
| Month | Contributions |
|---|---|
| December 2024 | 0 |
| January 2025 | 0 |
| February 2025 | 19 |
| March 2025 | 40 |
| April 2025 | 20 |
| May 2025 | 52 |
| June 2025 | 52 |
| July 2025 | 44 |
| August 2025 | 0 |
| September 2025 | 7 |
| October 2025 | 59 |
| November 2025 | 56 |
| December 2025 | 11 |
| January 2026 | 57 |
| February 2026 | 9 |
| March 2026 | 51 |
| April 2026 | 45 |
| May 2026 | 11 |
| June 2026 | 14 |
| July 2026 | 60 |
| August 2026 | 0 |
| September 2026 | 12 |
| October 2026 | 91 |
Debates they spoke in most
Plus 567 contributions in the regular slots, such as Leaders' Questions and Priority Questions. Speech from the chair is not counted.
Party, constituency and offices
- constituency Dún Laoghaire 29 November 2024 to now
- party Fine Gael 29 November 2024 to now
- office Minister for Health 23 January 2025 to now
I will repeat some of the things that have been said about recruitment. The numbers are up by 25% over that period. The pay and numbers strategy resulted in a net increase of 2,000 people into the health system, with 2,000 people who had temporary contracts made permanent, 2,000 vacancies and a net uplift of 2,000 people. I will be happy to provide the detail to the Deputy.
Nevertheless, we continue to recruit. We h…
The Government remains committed to increasing capacity in the public system. The commitment is underpinned by unparalleled levels of investment as we move to universal access to health care. However, until the capacity is in place to meet the increased levels of demand, it is necessary in the interim to make use of all available capacity in the public and private systems to ensure that patients have access to the ca…
It is an excellent question. It is exactly what I have asked Bernard Gloster to do. Of course, I have to wait for the report to be able to express my confidence in the quality of the work that has come back. The Deputy may take that as a reference example. As I said my opening reply, if there was underutilised capacity, that is, as the report states, other people in the hospital could have held surgeries at an earlie…
The Deputy raised the issue I am concerned about, namely that there are incentives to be under productive during the working week with a view to, or which have the outcome of, very busy clinics on Saturdays or bank holiday Mondays. That is exactly the sort of incentive I need to see stop.
I cannot speak to the relative activity because I do not have that data. The Deputy's example is precisely the sort of example th…
There are nine HSE rapid access symptomatic breast disease clinics nationally, as the Deputy knows. The HSE has set a target of 95% of urgent referrals being seen within ten working days. Non-urgent referrals should be seen within 12 weeks. The HSE national cancer control programme monitors the performance of these clinics. Last year, national compliance with targets was 76% for urgent and non-urgent referrals but I …
The Deputy is right. Yesterday I was at St. James's Hospital and it and Trinity College have become one of the accredited cancer centres of the Organisation of European Cancer Institutes. There are many accredited centres but this is at a different level. It is the most prestigious award for cancer control. The Deputy is correct that we have very good services. He asked in what world is this acceptable. There is no w…
I thank the Deputy and I agree with him on all of these points. Yesterday at the health committee we covered some of the workforce planning issues and the expansion of training places. It is also a workforce management issue and the variation between hospitals is well noted. I am told that in the Mater there have been long-standing recruitment challenges but they have been stabilised. There has been a consistently hi…
In response to a series of reviews which raised corporate and clinical governance concerns at CHI, I have moved to strengthen governance and oversight structures at CHI in a range of different way. This was done via the appointment of two members of the HSE board to the board of CHI on 28 May. There are more board appointments to be made. This means that all but one members of the board have been appointed since 2024…
The Deputy will note the number of resignations from the board. She has identified a series of important and serious issues, most of which we knew would be coming because of the concerns raised by whistleblowers and others. Reports were correctly commissioned with HIQA by the HSE and CHI. We knew they would come but, as she pointed out, the report that was not shared with either the HSE or the Department raises very …
I want to be very careful of the privacy of Mikey and his family but I have met him and I have met his family. I am aware of the various issues. On foot of meeting them, I put in train a process and perhaps I might speak to the Deputy about it privately rather than on the floor of the Dáil, recognising his privacy.
With regard to scoliosis and the issue of waiting times, it is a source of great frustration to me tha…
I thank the Deputy.
The role our healthcare workers played during the pandemic cannot be overstated, particular at the very early stage of it. They went beyond the call of duty, working in front-line environments, treating Covid-19 positive patients, particularly in the early days when the control mechanisms were what they ultimately became and while the risk was extraordinarily great. In response to that, a tempora…
There is no intention not to recognise that or to not be empathetic, which is why the scheme for full pay was there for five years. I am aware that the Minister for Social Protection has reviewed the EU recommendation in respect of the recognition of Covid-19, not long Covid, for an occupational illness. Following that review, it was determined that Covid-19 did not meet the requirements to be recognised as an occupa…
Again, I recognise that the findings of the Labour Court are still awaited and I respect that. I will also reiterate the terms of the sick leave scheme. Having been on full pay for five years, the healthcare workers may receive further full pay for three months, half pay for three months, temporary rehabilitative remuneration for 547 days of paid leave and the critical illness protocol that forms part of the sick lea…
I thank the Deputy.
As part of the Government’s ambulatory care policy and in advance of the new elective hospitals, the HSE is developing surgical hubs across the regions. They will play an important role in separating scheduled and unscheduled care, reducing waiting times, thereby improving access and care for patients. The programme for Government committed to delivering six new hubs and exploring the provision o…
I thank Deputy Ward and I assure him, representatives from Donegal, the consultants and doctors in Letterkenny and the people of Donegal more broadly that I will do precisely that. I am committed to that region. That is why I visited it a number of weeks into becoming Minister for Health in order to understand for myself. I cannot look at it on a map or look at drawings. I have to be there to understand the dynamics …
I thank Deputy Ward and I hear what he is saying about his experience of the HSE. That is important. It is also important to reflect on local hospital management and their responsibility to advance cases on behalf of the hospital. When I met Deputies from Donegal, I went through the projects that had been advanced and supported. I recognised there was, in my view, insufficient surgical ask by the local hospital manag…
I will answer on HIQA specifically and ask the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, for his perspective as well. HIQA plays a crucial role in ensuring high-quality and safe care for patients using our health and social care services. The Government strongly supports HIQA in maintaining and strengthening its critical regulatory role. While it provides an important role, it also needs improvement. A number of changes t…
It is exceptionally important to acknowledge that our focus here is on HIQA, but HIQA did not do and did not enable what happened in the nursing homes. I want to take a moment to reflect on the fact that the provider and the individuals involved are ultimately responsible. We will also work with HIQA but let us first and foremost direct our ire at the providers of the nursing homes.
I recognise the importance of timely access for patients to medicines, including new medicines. Supported by €128 million of funding, in the past four years the State has delivered access to 194 new medicines. Of these, 74 were for cancer and 49 were for rare diseases. Budget 2025 allocated €30 million for new medicines, to come from efficiencies to be identified by the HSE.
The Government has introduced a suite of …
I want to put a little bit of context on this. The State spent more than €3 billion in 2023 providing medicines to patients. We sometimes forget that €3 billion of the health spend goes to providing medicines. That is appropriate but it is a major budgetary consideration as well. With the early access programmes, we have to get the balance right between being able to get access to the drugs and also being able to wor…
I will do so, Deputy.
I agree completely with the Deputy. However, my immediate priority is to ensure that there is clinical follow-up and care for patients who have undergone pelvic osteotomy surgery in accordance with the recommendations of the Thomas audit report. I am very aware that there are families around Ireland who are receiving letters and follow-up to say that surgery was not necessary on their child. I cannot imagine the dist…
My practice, as much as I possibly can, is to meet people. Like Deputy Clarke, I have met parents and seen the distress. I have parents in my constituency in this situation. There is no difference between our experiences of this. I cannot believe the distress being experienced by the parents of the 71 children. We are already identifying children. Parents are being told through this initial clinical follow-up that th…
I do not know the exact details of the Deputy's constituent's case but for any child now indicated for surgery, the assessment is done in a very different way from how it happened before. Any such assessment is done by a multidisciplinary team, including a doctor. It is a cross-site piece of work including a physiotherapist assessment. It is not, as had been the case, that an individual consultant makes decisions in …