Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Following directly on Deputies Carthy and Murphy, there is very significant public concern about the issues raised in that newspaper article and these are at the core of what the Committee of Public Accounts is about. I fully accept the comments of the Comptroller and Auditor General that there is no perceived loss of money at this point, although he reserves the right to examine that. There is also the concern that while money should be made available, it should not be tied up within one particular stream of funding where it cannot be spent and is unavailable for other uses.

The concern I have, and it is very serious one for every Member of the Oireachtas, is that there may be an attempt here to undermine the very democratic will of this Oireachtas to allocate funding and to set a priority on this particular issue of mental health. This is reporting by the media so I cannot yet say if this is true or untrue but the Department of Health has an obligation to follow through on the political decisions taken by Oireachtas. If a Minister or Minister of State of the Government allocates funding that can be spent in that one year, the public and the people who use mental health services would expect every effort to be made to ensure that money is spent along the lines the Government has outlined. How decisions are made in this place, administered and implemented is very important for everybody in the Oireachtas. If there is a suggestion there is an unwillingness to do that or it is being frustrated in any way, that is something the Committee of Public Accounts needs to get to the bottom of. I have heard the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, speak very passionately in the media about this issue and she is very clear that all the money she sought was money the HSE could spend. I know the Deputy very well and know she champions this issue of mental health. She has her sleeves rolled up on this. We must ensure that if funds are secured, they are spent. That is an issue I certainly want to get to the bottom of in any session we have with the Department of Health and the HSE.