Jillian van Turnhout (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I want to return to the issue of the Child and Family Agency and the deficit. The reason I may have looked puzzled when the Minister was replying to the question was that we sat in this room on 19 December with the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs and I specifically asked her to confirm the agency would not be burdened with a deficit from the start. She said: "The 2014 allocation will have to do solely with 2014 expenditure and will not have to address a historic deficit." How can we reconcile the two statements? Will the Minister return on Thursday and explain whether there will be a deficit for the agency and, if so, how much? Everybody knows a new agency faces additional start-up costs. The agency is not being given a fighting chance and I would see it as a retrograde step if it is burdened with a deficit.