Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Hold on a minute.

There is €708 million in ELS funding and €100 million for specific new measures. The €708 million is made up of numerous parts. I ask Mr. Moloney, as Secretary General, to provide this oversight committee with great detail on how he and the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, arrived at the figure of €708 million. For example, how much of this funding is for public pay and the carryover of the two pay increments introduced this year? How much relates to various inflationary pressures? How much is the full cost effect of recruitment that took place? What are all the component parts of this €708 million?

I do not accept for one second what Mr. Moloney is trying to suggest, which is that the €400 million deficit this year that will have to be carried over into next year can be addressed from that funding. It cannot. Everybody knows that. It just cannot be provided from that funding. The Department has come to the conclusion that this deficit that is here this year will somehow just - poof - disappear next year when the Secretary General of the Department of Health and the CEO of the HSE are saying it will not. They are saying two thirds of that deficit is recurring because it relates to inflation and demand. We are not seeing deflation and demand is not decreasing. It is actually increasing. Has the Department of Health, which the Secretary General has made very clear is the body he is in negotiations with rather than the HSE, changed its position? My understanding is that its position was the same, which is that two thirds of this deficit will recur next year. Has it changed its position? Has it deviated from what the CEO of the HSE is now saying in the conversations the Secretary General is having with him?