The money spent on employing agency staff at Letterkenny University Hospital has doubled in the last four years.
Last year the hospital paid a staggering €9.752 million – up on the €4.652 million spent in 2011.
The spiralling costs have been described as “scandalous” by Senator Padraig Mac Lochlainn.
Senator Mac Lochlainn said this startling information obtained by his colleague David Cullinane TD, Sinn Féin Spokesperson on Public Expenditure, is a damning indictment of this Government’s disastrous mismanagement of our health service.
“Rather than investing in the recruitment of the necessary numbers of nurses and doctors, we are paying private companies multiples of this for temporary agency staff”.
“It is bad enough that Letterkenny University Hospital is seriously discriminated against in funding as I have revealed over recent months but the limited money our major county hospital is allocated is misspent in this way.
“Unfortunately the level of investment announced in the budget will mean that this failure and waste will continue. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have delivered this budget and they need to answer the hard questions on this.
“For Sinn Féin’s part, we will continue to fight for proper investment in our health service rather than tax cuts and tax breaks for the rich”.