Questions

1039. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether her Department or the Health Service Executive uses any recognised international guideline, benchmark, or population-based standard to assess the adequacy of whole-time equivalent consultant staffing levels in chronic pain services; if so, to specify the guideline or comparator used; if not, to state how the adequacy of consultant capacity in chronic pain…

1140. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether the HSE and Primary Care Reimbursement Service have contingency arrangements in place to automatically reimburse clinically equivalent substitute medicines where supply chain disruption affects a reimbursable product; and if not, whether she will introduce such arrangements as a matter of urgency. [6501/26]

718. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health if her Department has issued any guidance, circulars, memoranda, policy notes, or informal instructions to the HSE or to any health region since 2020 regarding the provision, refusal, consent standards, or ethical basis for elective male circumcision where no medical indication exists, and if so, to provide details. [73637/25]

993. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health the governance reason the HSE has not implemented a national HR information system capable of recording historic datasets on funded workforce posts; the date on which her Department last assessed the adequacy of the existing reporting platform used to track National Service Plan posts; and the actions now being taken to ensure future compliance with public-service…

994. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health the basis on which the HSE concluded that it is not required to maintain historic records of funded posts that remain unfilled for extended periods; her views on whether the absence of such records meets statutory obligations for financial governance, workforce planning, and public-expenditure oversight; and if she will now issue a direction requiring the retentio…

995. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health her Department’s assessment of the risks created by the HSE’s inability to record the duration for which funded posts remain unfilled; the way these gaps are reflected in national workforce plans submitted under the Public Service Reform framework; and the steps she is taking to ensure the HSE’s workforce data infrastructure supports evidence-based planning. [7195…

1061. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health the current number of whole-time equivalent vacancies for social workers, social care workers and dietitians in the HSE South/South-West region; the average duration of these vacancies; and the projected contribution of apprenticeship schemes to reducing these vacancies in 2025 and 2026. [72250/25]

572. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health the interim clinical safeguards she has directed the HSE to introduce for the assessment and treatment of children and young people with gender distress in response to the Cass Review; the guidance her Department has issued to CAMHS and Children’s Health Ireland on the application of a precautionary approach; and the timeframe for finalising updated national clini…

301. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health to explain the contradiction between the HSE’s written assurance that no Irish child has been referred to a clinic in Antwerp and references in judicial review documentation to a care pathway involving such a clinic; and to outline what steps the Department is taking to reconcile and verify these conflicting claims. [70454/25]

517. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health the average length of time taken for an applicant for a 2024 HSE development post to complete the clearance process before being placed on payroll, the number of applicants currently in clearance for more than 3 months, 6 months and 12 months, and the operational reasons for these delays. [68911/25]

518. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health the impact of the 2024–2025 HSE employment control measures on the staffing targets approved for 2024, the number of posts for which recruitment was paused or deferred as a result, and the expected timeline to lift remaining restrictions in order to fill all outstanding development posts. [68912/25]

519. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health the performance targets set by her Department for the HSE regarding recruitment timelines for both replacement vacancies and newly funded service development posts, the monthly metrics used to monitor progress toward these targets, the current national performance against each target, and the expected timeframe to eliminate the reported gap of 6,852 funded WTE pos…

520. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health if her Department has conducted any central review of the number of non-medical circumcisions undertaken in public hospitals in each of the years 2020 to 2025, whether the HSE has provided annual activity reports on this category of elective procedures, and if so when these reports were received. [68914/25]

521. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health when her Department last received from the HSE a cost-impact analysis for elective procedures without medical indication, including non-medical circumcision, identifying total annual theatre time allocated to such procedures and the effect on paediatric surgery waiting lists. [68915/25]

528. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether her Department has instructed the HSE to provide monthly reports on 2024 development posts filled by temporary or agency staff; and the date on which these data will be supplied to the Oireachtas as requested. [68922/25]

529. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health when she last met senior HSE officials regarding delays in pre-employment clearances for 2024 development posts, the specific actions now underway to shorten clearance timelines; and the monthly KPIs introduced to monitor improvements. [68923/25]

643. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health to specify the projected date by which duplicate financial reporting requirements between the HSE and voluntary hospitals will be eliminated, and to confirm whether interim milestones have been set for the removal of parallel reporting structures pending full IFMS deployment. [68034/25]

644. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health to provide the annual estimated cost of maintaining parallel financial systems in voluntary hospitals, including software licences, staffing time and manual reporting processes, and to set out the projected savings associated with eliminating these duplicated systems. [68035/25]

645. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health to publish the monthly IFMS compliance metrics for statutory sites, including the percentage of sites achieving full utilisation, and to provide the projected compliance rate for voluntary hospitals once deployment begins. [68036/25]

646. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health to outline the savings originally projected in the 2015 business case for the Integrated Financial Management System, to identify the year in which those savings were expected to be realised, and to confirm whether these projections have since been revised. [68037/25]

647. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health to confirm whether participation in the Integrated Financial Management System will be made an explicit condition of annual service-level agreements and the release of Exchequer funding to voluntary hospitals. [68038/25]

648. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health to confirm whether her Department or the HSE has carried out any governance risk assessment relating to voluntary hospitals that have not yet been integrated into the Integrated Financial Management System, and to state whether any such assessment will be published. [68039/25]

649. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health to outline the factors delaying the finalisation of the Integrated Financial Management System rollout schedule for voluntary hospitals, and to provide the expected completion date for full deployment. [68040/25]

651. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health the real-time financial oversight mechanisms that will apply to voluntary hospitals once IFMS is deployed, and to set out how this data will be used to strengthen governance, auditing and expenditure control. [68042/25]

652. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health to provide a detailed breakdown of the 2025 overspend in acute hospitals, primary care, agency staffing and high-tech drugs, disaggregated by hospital group and HSE region. [68047/25]