Mr. Stephen Mulvany:

It is a valid question as to the extent to which we should ensure we fund fully what is already running before we establish new services. That is a matter for the Minister and the political system on an annual basis in terms of allocation of total resource. I do not have the figures from last year to hand but I can send on a note. Having checked them previously, my recollection of the figures at the end of April is that they are 2.3% over on the HSE's current account, so €116.2 million as per the opening statement made by my colleague. We are €116 million over, €80 million of which is in the operational service area and about €40 million in pensions, demand-led services and primary care services, where we do not have as much management control in terms of the components. Both of those were higher last year. The proportion that was in the operational services was higher as a portion of the total last year. We are better than we were last year. We could take €116 million at four months and extrapolate to guess what it would be at year end. Obviously we are not planning to have that level of deficit; we are planning to reduce any deficit as much as possible, particularly focusing on operational service areas where we have more direct controls. We have fewer direct controls in pensions and demand-led services.

I am not aware of the specific example in the north east. The budget oversight group per sedoes not, in my understanding, make specific decisions around specific measures. It is an early warning and oversight mechanism for the Departments of Public Expenditure and Reform and Health to gauge the HSE's progress to date, progress around savings, where are we against the overall budget and what it looks like towards the year end. It does not go into that specific level of detail.

We have given budgets out to managers. The CEO, as he is now, has been very clear in his public pronouncements that he accepts our managers do not have sufficient budget to meet all the demands they face and he will support them where they have to make difficult prioritisation decisions, as long as they make and communicate them properly. That includes communicating properly with local communities. The notion of an entire respite service in the north east closing does sound strange to me but we can certainly check in on it if the Deputy can share some of the details.