Declan Breathnach (Louth, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Mr. Mulvany is clearly saying that he does not make the decisions and nor does the budgetary oversight group. It is delegated to managers to live within their budget and therefore they make the suggestion of cuts. While I will not bore him with what I will be discussing in the Dáil Chamber later on, is clear that those managers are identifying services that are greatly needed in their communities, effectively, if a service cannot come in on budget. We can agree to disagree on the figure but I would like Mr. Mulvany to come back to the committee. I have no reason to disbelieve the figures we are presenting. Mr. Mulvany is saying the HSE hopes to come in on budget and we are suggesting the HSE certainly will be €150 million over at a minimum and, if that is delivered in the form of cuts, the people who will suffer will be the vulnerable.

That must be communicated to those communities and that is not happening. I heard Deputy O'Brien refer to them as interventions. Mr. Mulvany said they are not cuts as the service is operating to a budget. I understand that but the issue is the impact that this is having and will have. I stand over what I said. For financial reasons, a local manager has indicated that a respite service has been totally removed in order for him to come within budget and the service will discontinue at the end of 2019. It is unacceptable to me, as a national public representative, that this was communicated to the clients of the service by letter.