Special Report

Paschal Donohoe’s fear ballooning HSE budget could impact economic stability

Letters show spending minister demanding urgency from health minister Stephen Donnelly to get spending under control amid concerns a €2bn health bailout will be needed

Paschal Donohoe and Stephen Donnelly: an exchange of letters shows how the spending minister and the health minister are at odds over the escalating health budget

Since 2019, €6 billion has been added to the ballooning budget of the Department of Health. This was initially to deal with Covid-19, but has now become embedded into core spending.

There have been repeated warnings that pumping more money into the HSE is not producing better outcomes, and there is a lack of oversight of spending by the department.

But still bigger budgets have been allocated despite concerns that this impacts the ability to ...