David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Woods and Mr. Connaghan. That gives me answers as to why there was a deficit. Essentially, Mr. Woods is saying the two main drivers in terms of acute hospital spend were that the volume of care has increased as has the complexity, which I imagine is things like unexpected flu outbreaks and so on, resulting in greater isolation and containment needs.

Mr. Connaghan also mentioned the trolley figures. I imagine they reflect increased demand with more people looking for beds when there are not enough beds. We know that. The more demand and pressure on hospitals, the more spend there will be. However, why is that not forecast? Why was it not built in to the estimation of the spend? Were the circumstances really exceptional? Were they outliers or were they potentially foreseen? Did we just not allocate enough money in last year's voted expenditure to health to cover what should have been the amount given to make sure we were in a position to properly treat patients?