Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

If Deputy Durkan has difficulty using his 12 minutes, I am happy to give longer answers if that will assist, but I do not think he will. Deputy Durkan is right to raise the issue of the health budget. There is a number of parts to the answer. First, we must be honest about the fact that the Oireachtas makes decisions outside of budget time. The Oireachtas rightly decided this year that we needed to sort the nurses' industrial relations dispute which was not budgeted for. We decided, through the various industrial relations mechanisms, that we needed to solve the SIPTU dispute. We also decided that we needed to do more on Brexit and more in relation to Cervical Check. Deputy Durkan, as a long-serving Member of this House, knows that budget day is a moment in time, albeit an important one, but in a dynamic environment like healthcare, decisions can be made after the budget which can have a significant impact. We will see evidence of that this year as well. I am interested to hear Mr. Reid's views on this. There is an issue around making sure that we have better data and information in health to prepare us to engage in the budgetary process. I must say, honestly, with the arrival of the new CEO and the new board structure, the financial information and data coming from the HSE in the context of that process is like night and day, so dramatic is the improvement.

I am pleased to say that when the Supplementary Estimate figure for health becomes clear in the coming days, it will be a very significant reduction on what was required last year because of very intense financial oversight by the CEO, the board and HSE managers and staff across the country and I thank them for their work in that regard. The final point is that if we are talking about better outcomes and better value for the taxpayer's investment, then we must focus on the reorientation of the health service. We must do more in the community and we must deliver Sláintecare. I know that Deputy Durkan is a passionate supporter of the latter.