Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

That is fundamentally a question that should be posed to the Minister for Health, who is statutorily and constitutionally responsible for managing health expenditure. Obviously, the Government as a whole listens to every line Department so that we can make rational decisions about a finite cake and how to divide it up.

In truth, we have gone through a very significant decrease in public expenditure over the last years. As a Government, we sought to the best of our ability to protect core social programmes, including health, but also social protection and education. The proportion of the total volume of money we spend on those three areas has increased as a portion of the overall spend. In the 2015 budget, for example, those three Departments are now, from memory, at 87% of all public expenditure.