Debate contribution: Health: Budget 2025-26 Allocation

Debate contribution by Mr Matthew O'Toole on 18 February 2025.

MLA: Mr Matthew O'Toole
Party at the time: Social Democratic and Labour Party
Date: 18 February 2025
Type: Debate contribution
Business: Oral Answers to Questions
Heading: Health: Budget 2025-26 Allocation
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 4806360

Text

Minister, I acknowledge and have sympathy with some of the arguments that you have made about other Executive parties' hypocrisy, but would it not be easier to get political support and buy-in and, indeed, public engagement on your budgetary needs if the Programme for Government were more specific about the actions that you intend to take? Compare it with the Southern Programme for Government. I do not endorse it or say that it is deliverable, but it states:
"This Government will: • Further reduce waiting times, targeting all patients to be seen within the Sláintecare target of 10 and 12 weeks. • Increase capacity by between 4,000 and 4,500 new and refurbished inpatient hospital beds across the country. • Increase ICU bed capacity by at least a further 100 beds."
I am not saying that those are the right or wrong targets, but they are clear targets to which the Minister and the Government can be held accountable. Would it help you to build political support if the Programme for Government had that level of detail?

176 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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