Mr. Seamus Coffey:

I thank the Deputy. I will respond to the earlier comments on costings. IFAC has a narrow mandate to assess the fiscal and macroeconomic plans as set out by the Government. In other countries, bodies with a similar mandate to IFAC do similar work on the costings and plans set out by the opposition parties. The Deputy mentioned that this was something undertaken by a colleague of his and perhaps it might be worth considering in an Irish context having a broader costings function somewhere within our policy framework that offered this service.

IFAC does not have a bias against the spending on health. It has an issue, however, with the unplanned nature of many of the increases. IFAC's mandate is to assess the plans as set out by Government, and it produces significant documentation with detailed analysis on those plans. Despite this, IFAC finds when it goes through the plans the following year that the spending on those plans has been exceeded by between €400 million and €600 million. IFAC's analysis and assessment of the plans is of something that was promised but not delivered. The issue is one of planning, and if we wish to allocate additional resources to health, and as the Deputy said, it is an important area, let us do so in a transparent fashion and have the consequences of the allocation of those additional resources fully thought through.

My colleague, Dr. Casey, may wish to comment on some of the other points.