Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Government anticipates that the relative growth in expenditure for 2019 will peak in May and that there will then be two months of decline followed by stability for the rest of the year. I believe that is a fair analysis of what the Government is projecting in health. That is the complete opposite of what we saw last year and of trends in health spending. There are indications that there will be an overrun in the middle of the year. If even the current level of spending were to be projected out to the end of the year, there would be an overrun of €150 million. The trend has always been to have a significant increase in the last quarter. Why does the Minister believe that 2019 will buck the trend in respect of overspending on health?