Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 5 July 2018

Public Accounts Committee

2017 Financial Statements of the HSE
2016 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 38 - Department of Health

9:00 am

Mr. Jim Breslin:

There are a couple of things. We certainly would not cut somebody's future budget because they did not spend money. That is a real recipe for having people just throwing money up against the wall, as it were. The capital budget for next year and the year after remains the same. It is a question of both our having to do some work with our colleagues in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform from a legal point of view on how it interacts with the Health Act, and us then having to make a judgment call. Do we roll that over so the capital spend in the subsequent year is available or, in a situation where there is a revenue overspend, do we say that one has to be set off against the other? If there is an overspend in one area and underspend in the other, is it possible to come forward looking for the underspend to be carried over if one has not come within one's budget?

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