Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I understand that the Department has its point of view but from my point of view the health services are seriously underfunded. The Secretary General of the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, Robert Watt, has made it clear that two-thirds of the drivers of the deficit this year are inflation and demand and that they are not going away. The CEO of the HSE has said the same thing. What the Department and the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, have done is provide ELS that as a proportion of core expenditure is less than last year. The Department is hoping that the underfunding and the deficit we will have this year will magically disappear. None of that base has been provided. What is health inflation running at?