Shane Cassells (Meath West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome our guests. A lot of figures have already been quoted. I want to keep things straight so we can focus on drilling down into the figures. In answering the Chairman's question about the €637 million, Mr. Breslin said that was not inclusive of VAT. That is at odds with what the then Minister for Health, Deputy Varadkar, said in April 2016. He said it was an all-in figure, inclusive of VAT, add-ons and contingencies. That is a direct contradiction of what Mr. Breslin's then boss said at that time.

This was noted this week in the Irish Independent' editorial, in which reference was made to a hobgoblin. We cannot have a situation where the Secretary General refers to that figure here this morning and says it is not inclusive of VAT and the Minister for Health said it was.

On the €637 million-----