Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

One can use data and abuse data as much as one wants. Some of the challenges and the frustrations we have are in trying to delve below the headline figures. The officials in the Department will know this - we talk about the fiscal space and the net in gross fiscal space, and it reduces because of demographic pressures. I do not know how many times I have tabled questions seeking a breakdown of the demographic pressure in the Department of Education of Skills or the Department of Health. We have a gross figure for demographic pressure, yet no Department can tell us what is its portion. Further, they cannot tell us what that actually means. For example, if it is €100 million in terms of the Department of Education and Skills, does that equate to, say, 100 teachers or a certain number of schools? What happens in government on budget day, regardless of what Government is in place, is that it has increased the budget by a certain amount and that equates to a certain number of teachers or nurses, but when one delves behind the figure, sometimes it does not even meet the demographic needs. It is important that type of information is provided. Those are my two key concerns - the quality of information and the flow of information.

My last question concerns the budget of the Department of Health. The agreement between the Government and Fianna Fáil states that it would be verifiable. How is it intended to have the expenditure for the Department of Health verified next year given that last year's expenditure was way off the mark? It was interesting that the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, said he only found out on 20 April that the AIB transaction was going to be dealt with by expenditure. Therefore, we can only assume that the Government was planning a stability programme update that would have resulted in significant cutbacks for the remainder of the year for the Department of Health because the Minister was not in a position to allocate that amount of money to the Department of Health or, indeed, any other Department had it not been for the luck it got in the EUROSTAT ruling against the State. It is interesting that was happening. To go back to the core issue, how does the Minister intend the information will be verifiable and where does he see the role of a budgetary committee in fulfilling that commitment?