Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and his officials. Unless I missed it, I did not see any reference in his opening remarks to health overspends in the HSE and the Department of Health. What we have in terms of published information are the Exchequer returns, or the fiscal monitor, for the month of August, which shows that up to the end of August current spending in health was €312 million over budget. We are reading reports in the media that the Minister informed Cabinet recently that the overrun could be €600 million but we are also reading that the HSE believes it could be higher - €750 million has been mentioned or even, in a worst-case scenario, €1.1 billion of an overrun. It is well past time we had clarity. We have a published figure of just over €300 million of an overrun. Can the Minister inform this committee where we are in regard to health spending in 2018 and what he expects the outturn to be for the calendar year? What is the impact of that and how does he intend to address any overspend?