Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly The Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly TD, has announced a strategic multi-year plan to expand adult critical care capacity from 255 beds to 446 beds.
Work on the plan has already begun and will see 321 adult critical care beds in place by the end of 2021, compared to 255 at the start of this year. This will be funded by €52 million allocated in Budget 2021.
This funding will also allow for education and training initiatives to increase the critical care workforce and for investment in critical care retrieval services.
Completion of Phase Two will see a further 117 beds added through the development of new build capacity at five prioritised sites, including St James’s Hospital, the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital, St Vincent’s University Hospital and Cork University Hospital.
Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly said: “This investment will help our health service to deliver the right care in the right place at the right time.”
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Homelessness figures down almost 2,000 this year
Peter McVerry Trust, the national housing and homeless charity, has welcomed a further reduction in the number of people recorded as homeless.
The November 2020 figure revealed a monthly decrease of 243 people to 8,484, meaning that over the last 12 months the number of people accessing emergency accommodation has reduced by 1,964, or 19%.
Pat Doyle CEO of Peter McVerry Trust said, “It has been a year of enormous challenges for society, but the silver lining for people in homelessness is that housing has become more readily available and fewer households have lost their homes this year.”
“There has been a huge amount of work done by local authorities and housing associations to provide pathways to housing for people impacted by homelessness. Peter McVerry Trust has been able to help 1,300 people secure a home and this week alone 17 single people and families will move into a home in time for Christmas.”
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9 out 10 students study in Catholic school, new education data shows
Nine out of 10 students in Ireland attend primary schools with a Catholic ethos with 8 per cent of primary school students in Irish language schools.
Half of secondary school students attend Catholic-ethos schools with 3.6% in Irish language post-primary education, according to the Department of Education report. In 2019, there were 153 multi/inter denominational and 250 Irish-language primary schools with 352 multi/inter denominational and 69 Irish language secondary schools.
Meanwhile, the number of people taking up apprenticeships after secondary school more than doubled over the past five years, rising from 8,317 in 2015 to 17,829 in 2019. Numbers in full-time higher education, including universities, institutes of technology and colleges, rose by 3% to 185,474 between 2015 and 2018.
The Department of Education report, also reveals those studying part-time or in flexible way, including remote online learning, has increased steadily, rising by more than a third from 6,015 in 2015 to 9,207 in 2018.