Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will ignore the ribald commentary from my colleagues. I seek clarification but am not attempting to have a swipe at the Minister or his officials. Over the years I have repeatedly asked questions about the adequacy of the health budget to meet the challenges faced by the health services in the course of the year. At the beginning of every year I am always told that the budget is adequate and at the end of the year we find that it is not and there are reasons for that. Every Department is asked at budget time to make projections for the year ahead and within each Department there are components which make a contribution but something is going wrong all of the time. There is some shortfall that is not being addressed. This is not a criticism of anybody at all and I am not making any political point here. In terms of the delivery of the health services to the general public, we need to know that we have reliable information coming from reliable sources so that we can budget accordingly. What is the answer to that question?