Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is not a defensive point at all to remind the Deputy he is not the Chair. I am more than happy to do it.

The Deputy made the point regarding facts and the need for facts. I am happy to lay out a few facts for the Deputy. It appears what he is trying to do is engender a sense of drama from documents that have already been shared with me, prepared for me and are already in the public arena. If the Deputy was in a position, which I am sure other spokespeople are, to have similar documents for other Government Departments he would see similar briefings to those prepared for me on many of the claims that come to me and negotiations I am involved in in other large spending Departments.

Looking at where we are overall and where we were in the Estimates process, at different points I had approximately €4 billion of funding that could be allocated in terms of spending decisions that had already been made, existing levels of service, ELSs, and new policy decisions. Twice that was being sought by other Government Departments. It is a normal feature of an Estimates procedure that I sit down with Ministers and they will look for many, many multiples of what is actually available to give them. That is the standard feature of the Estimates process and of the many difficult meetings I have with Ministers. That is just the fact of it.

The Deputy characterised that as evidence of mistrust and some kind of relationship that is particularly lacking in trust and full of conflict. The meetings we had with the Department of Health were difficult. They were difficult because the Department is dealing with important issues on its behalf and making the case for patients and it was doing its job. Reaching an outcome on this is a negotiation. That involved me challenging figures the Department brought to me and the Department challenging me and the Estimates and the offers I made available in order to reach an agreement. That is not distrust; it is just the negotiation process in the Estimates.

The point around the ELS and the agreement made regarding it has to be seen in the context of how big the overall health budget is at €22.4 billion. As for the Supplementary Estimate that may be needed next year I made this point when dealing with questions from the Deputy's colleague, Deputy Patricia Ryan. I cannot give a guarantee that no health supplementary budget will be needed for next year. I have never given a commitment that we can avoid that happening. It would be foolhardy to do so given how many have been needed in recent years. It is also the case that in other recent years we have been successful in keeping the Supplementary Estimate to a level that has not challenged the overall budget arithmetic too much and has still allowed us to meet patient needs. That is my aim, working with the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, for next year.