Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 16 December 2025
996. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health if her Department has conducted any financial-impact assessment of the 6,852 funded WTE posts reported as unfilled as of September 2025; the estimated Exchequer underspend arising from these unfilled posts; and the Department’s policy on how such underspends are monitored and reported. [71960/25]
View answerThe Department of Health do not conduct detailed financial-impact assessments of unfilled posts as the HSE does not produce pay or staffing data in sufficiently granular over the 9,000 grades employed to calculate the financial implications of individual posts that remain vacant at specific moments in time and change daily. The exact cost by grade is not known as it changes every day and the cost to collect this data from so many diverse sources would exceed the benefit that could possibly be derived from such an enhanced data capture exercise.
The overall financial impact of the currently less than 6,000 unfilled posts is reflected, but not separately identified in the internal financial reporting within both the HSE and the Department. In 2025, the under-spend is matched by an almost equivalent over-spend in agency costs, so that the overall payroll spend is in line with the budget spend allocation for payroll.
