616. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether her Department has approved any national governance, safeguarding, and clinical governance framework for gender identity services for children and young people, including required standards, audit arrangements, and lines of accountability; and if so, to provide the title, date of approval, and the name of the unit responsible for monitoring compliance. [13…
Parliamentary questions
Questions
TDs ask ministers questions to get answers on the record, most of them in writing. Here is every one asked in the 34th Dáil, by the department it went to and the subject heading it was filed under. How questions work
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Showing questions asked by Ken O'Flynn .
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617. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether her Department has conducted or commissioned, since 2019, any risk assessment, safeguarding assurance review, or governance assessment of gender identity services for children and young people, including assessment of diagnostic governance, consent safeguards, data completeness, and clinical oversight; and if so, to provide the date, the commissioning body…
618. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether her Department has completed any formal assessment since 2018 of the WPATH Standards of Care for the purposes of alignment with Irish health governance frameworks, including appraisal methodology, conflicts-of-interest screening, and evidence grading; and if so, to provide the date and the governance route by which the assessment was approved. [13695/26]
619. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether her Department has issued any written instruction to the HSE to establish a national dataset for gender identity services for minors, including referral volumes, diagnostic profiles, treatment pathways, and outcomes; and if so, to specify the minimum dataset fields required, the legal basis relied upon, and the target date for national coverage [13696/26]
620. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether her Department has approved a national KPI set for recruitment governance across services funded under the Health Vote, including vacancy definitions, clearance timelines, time-to-hire, and development post delivery; and if so, to list the KPIs, the definitions used, and the date of departmental approval. [13697/26]
621. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health further to Parliamentary Question No. 2162 of 13 January 2026, whether her Department requires the HSE to provide recruitment and vacancy data to the Department on a standardised national template with consistent definitions across all regions; and if so, to provide the date such standardisation was introduced and the compliance arrangements in place. [13698/26]
622. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health further to Parliamentary Question No. 2164 of 13 January 2026, whether her Department will require the HSE to report quarterly to the Department the estimated cost to the Health Vote of bed days lost associated with delayed transfers of care, including type E homelessness and housing support categories; and, if not, to state the reason cost reporting is not requir…
623. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health further to Parliamentary Question No. 2164 of 13 January 2026, whether her Department has approved any standard national methodology for calculating bed-day cost for governance and planning purposes, including the cost basis used and whether it is applied consistently across hospital groups; and if so, to provide the methodology reference and the date it was appro…
624. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether her Department requires maternity services to record and report, as a national patient safety governance measure, any instance where signs of life are observed following a termination of pregnancy, including whether any national data return is required from maternity hospitals to the Department or to a national programme; and if not, to state the policy ba…
625. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether her Department has commissioned or overseen since 2019 any national clinical audit, serious incident learning review, or patient safety governance review in relation to reporting and governance arrangements for cases where signs of life are observed following a termination of pregnancy; and if so, to provide the number of reviews, the dates, and whether fi…
626. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health further to the reply to Parliamentary Questions Nos. 2312 to 2316 of 13 January 2026, whether her Department holds the HSE tender evaluation summary, cost-effectiveness analysis, and decision documentation underpinning the decision not to procure enhanced influenza vaccines for the 2025 to 2026 season; and if so, to state whether she will publish the non-commercia…
630. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health the full list of national workforce Key Performance Indicators currently agreed between her Department and the HSE for 2025; the date on which each KPI was formally approved; the reporting frequency for each; and whether each KPI is published, in tabular form [13740/26]
631. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether the average time taken to fill funded vacant posts, from approval to commencement in post, is monitored at national level; if so, the most recent national figure; and if not, whether she will introduce a national time-to-fill benchmark as a matter of policy [13741/26]
632. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health to provide the number of funded vacant whole-time equivalent posts in each of the six health regions as of the most recent reporting date; and the corresponding vacancy rate expressed as a percentage of funded workforce [13742/26]
633. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health to state the total expenditure on agency staffing in each Health Region in 2024 and 2025 to date; and whether her Department has undertaken any analysis correlating agency expenditure with funded vacancy levels [13743/26]
634. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health to outline the recruitment control measures introduced in 2023 and 2024; the policy rationale for those measures; and whether any impact assessment was undertaken regarding their effect on vacancy levels, service delivery, or patient waiting times [13744/26]
636. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health the current number of medicines listed as being in short supply on the national medicines shortage list maintained by the Health Products Regulatory Authority; the number of these classified as critical or without a clinically equivalent alternative; the average duration of shortages recorded in each of the past three years; and the steps being taken at Department…
637. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether her Department maintains a formal medicines supply resilience strategy addressing strategic stockholding, diversification of supply chains, early warning mechanisms and substitution protocols; if so, when it was last reviewed; and if she will outline the key policy measures currently in force [13763/26]
638. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether her Department receives routine structured reports from the Health Products Regulatory Authority and the HSE regarding medicines shortages affecting chronic disease management, including respiratory conditions; the frequency and format of such reports; and how this information informs policy and budgetary planning [13764/26]
639. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether automatic reimbursement mechanisms are in place under community drug schemes to ensure that where a reimbursable medicine is unavailable due to shortage, clinically appropriate substitute medicines are reimbursed without additional administrative burden on patients or prescribers; and if not, whether she will introduce such a mechanism [13765/26]
640. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether her Department has undertaken any assessment of the patient safety, treatment interruption or cost implications arising from medicines shortages in the past three years; if so, the findings of that assessment; and if not, whether such an assessment will now be commissioned [13766/26]
641. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether her Department has issued formal policy guidance to the Health Service Executive or to the National Centre for Pharmacoeconomics regarding the appropriate time horizon to be applied in health technology assessments where medicines are intended to reduce the long-term incidence of chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease; and if s…
642. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether her Department requires that lifetime modelling of avoided downstream healthcare costs, including reduced hospital admissions, surgical interventions, dialysis, and long-term disability supports, be incorporated as standard practice in value-for-money assessments conducted under the Health (Pricing and Supply of Medical Goods) Act 2013; and if she will mak…
643. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether her Department has undertaken any review of the balance between short-term budget impact considerations and long-term prevention-based savings in medicines reimbursement decisions under the Health (Pricing and Supply of Medical Goods) Act 2013; and whether any policy changes are under consideration in this regard. [13787/26]
644. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether her Department has assessed the extent to which population-level disease prevention benefits are reflected in cost-effectiveness evaluations carried out by or on behalf of the Health Service Executive; and whether she intends to issue policy guidance clarifying how such prevention benefits are to be weighted in future reimbursement decisions. [13788/26]