Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Bernard J. Durkan is right that overruns are not new in the health service. Denying that there are overruns is new, as is pretending that they are not recurring. I can play the game of which previous Government made the biggest mess of the health service, but it will not profit us much. I asked the Minister how the overruns were related to recurring costs. There is a difference between recurring and once-off costs. A once-off cost can be incurred to deal with an event that places unprecedented pressure on the health service. I am not referring to the flu but other unforeseen events. Mr. Tony O'Brien wrote to the Minister earlier this year about the issue of recurring overruns. Does the Minister accept that there are overruns and is it his intention to deal with them? I am not asking him to divulge the fourth secret of Fatima, about which we read a lot in the newspapers.