Dan Neville (Limerick, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I raised with HSE at the last meeting the funding of the mental health services. An additional €35 million was allocated in 2012. Nobody was recruited that year and that allocation carried over into the following year. Therefore, that €35 million allocation was not spent. The following year an additional €35 million was allocated, which resulted in an allocation of €70 million for that year and over that period fewer than 500 were recruited. It is fair to say that only 50% of one of those allocations, €17 million, was spent. In the two years the Government allocated €105 million extra funding to the mental health services but the HSE did not use it. Is that a correct interpretation of what happened?