Parliamentary questions

613. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health further to Parliamentary Question No. 2074 of 13 January 2026, to list all written directions, circulars, guidance notes, governance frameworks or performance requirements issued by her Department to the HSE since 2018 concerning the treatment abroad scheme, including prior authorisation governance, escalation rules for high-cost approvals, and…

614. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health further to Parliamentary Question No. 2074 of 13 January 2026, whether her Department receives any routine dataset or report from the HSE on treatment abroad scheme approvals and expenditure, including the number of applications received, the number approved, the number refused, the average cost per approval and total spend by year since 2018; …

615. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether her Department has issued any written requirement to the HSE since 2018 to categorise treatment abroad scheme expenditure by procedure type for departmental governance and cost control purposes; and, if not, to state the reason her Department does not require procedure-level categorisation for Exchequer oversight. [13692/26]

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 monito…

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, th…

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 ap…

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 …

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…

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 rep…

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 t…

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…

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 d…

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 publi…

627. Deputy John Lahart asked the Minister for Health the Government’s long-term approach to supporting people suffering from long-Covid, in circumstances where specific illness benefit arrangements for long-Covid ended on 31 December 2025 (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [13704/26]

628. Deputy Ruairí Ó Murchú asked the Minister for Health to provide an update on the efforts being made to secure the services of an orthodontist for the regional orthodontic service based at Louth County Hospital, Dundalk; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [13733/26]

629. Deputy Ruairí Ó Murchú asked the Minister for Health to provide the number, age range and category of patient currently waiting for orthodontic assessment and orthodontic treatment at the regional orthodontic centre based at Louth County Hospital, in tabular form; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [13734/26]

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]

635. Deputy Ciarán Ahern asked the Minister for Health if she is aware that there are delays of up to ten working days arising in providing access to IT accounts for HSE staff returning to work after periods of statutory leave; the details of the average wait time for the provision of access to IT accounts for all grades of staff returning from statutory leave, in tabular form; and if she will mak…

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…

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]