Health budget underfunding will have catastrophic effect on services across Sligo and Leitrim

Sinn Féin TD Martin Kenny has said that the government’s shameful underfunding of health in Budget 2024 will have a catastrophic effect on services across Sligo and Leitrim.

Speaking ahead of a Sinn Féin motion calling for the underfunding to be reversed, Teachta Kenny added that the government must step back from the brink and provide proper resources to keep our health services working.

“The catastrophic underfunding of health we are seeing unfolding now will have a devastating effect on services for those across Sligo and Leitrim.

“Already, I am aware of people who were due to take up employment with Sligo University Hospital who are now being told they will not be proceeding with the contracts offered recently due to budget constraints. This is at a time when the emergency department in SUH has one of the highest waiting times in the country – through no fault of the staff.

“In Sinn Féin’s motion tonight, our party's spokesperson on Health, David Cullinane TD, is calling on the government to step back from the brink and provide proper funding to keep our health services working.

“The three parties in Government made a deliberate decision to dramatically underfund our health services.

“TDs across the northwest need to listen to those who elected them, and support our call for the Government to reverse the shameful underfunding.

“The consequences if they fail to do so will be felt widely across all services. The crisis in Emergency Departments will deepen. Patients will continue to languish on trolleys.

“There will be setbacks across mental health, disabilities, and in key clinical strategies such as cancer, cardiovascular and maternity care. There will be no new money for patients in need of new medicines which become available next year.

“That is a shameful indictment of a Government that has thrown in the towel on health, failing both patients and healthcare workers in the process. Sinn Féin has not.

“The Government must reverse their disastrous decision to deliberately underfund health, and protect patients and those working on the front line.”