Extra funding of over €300 million this year for the health service is being sought by the Minister for Health.
Minister Jennifer Carroll Mac Neill told the Oireachtas Committee on Health that this comprises €300m for day to day spending, and €2.1m for capital spending and is less than 1% of the overall health budget.
She said that the largest overrun covers non-pay across acute hospitals, community care and the primary care services.
An amount of €40m is a once off payment to voluntary hospitals to stabilise their finances, but she said this comes with a requirement for much tighter governance and controls, as well as stricter recruitment, seven-day rostering, and adoption of national IT systems.
Another €10m is for the Section 39 pay agreement providing a 9.25% pay increase agreed earlier this year.
In relation to the capital side, €2.1m is for Brexit-related works at Rosslare Europort for import checks and inspections in behalf of several State agencies, including the HSE which part funds it.
The minister told the committee that health already accounts for one in every four euro of Government spending.
She said that productivity has to substantially improve, noting that outpatient appointments per consultant have fallen by about 30% over the past decade and another 6% in the last year, while consultant hours have increased by nearly 10% annually.
Minister Carroll MacNeill said the workforce is up 25% and there have been 1,330 more acute beds put in since 2019.
She said her approach is to move away from reliance on marginal funding increases and staff additions as the sole solution to improving services.
The minister said that the supplementary estimate is among the lowest supplementary dependencies, excluding Covid, in many years.
