Mr. Seamus Coffey:

I would make a summary point on the health overruns and the Deputy said people were not feeling it. One point to note is what we are making our analysis based on, which is on the original figures in the budget, looking at what the outturn is and an overrun relative to what was budgeted for versus what happened at the end. In the report we look at spending on hospitals, which seems to have been a large source of the overruns in recent years. The budgeted amounts between the 2013-18 were annual decreases averaging €80 million. The budget set out an average reduction each of €80 million. The outturns were annual increases of €280 million. What we are comparing are the figures in the initial budget versus what happened at the end. That is not to say there have not been changes or an impact on services. It should be clear what it is we are looking at. The impact of the overruns might not necessarily be those additional services the Deputy pointed out. It could just be a combination of inappropriate or unrealistic budgets to begin with and a failure to stick to those budgets throughout the year. We feel particularly regarding hospitals it looks like it is a combination of the two.