Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This meeting has been convened to consider the Revised Estimates for Public Services 2022: Vote 38, Department of Health. While the committee has no role in approving the Estimates, there is an opportunity for it to make the scrutiny of the budgetary performance of the Department more transparent. The briefing prepared for the secretariat illustrates the difference between the previous financial allocations and those for 2022 on a subhead-by-subhead basis within each programme. An additional briefing document provided by the Department goes into more detail, offers further analysis and focuses on the subheads. Is it agreed that the committee consider the Estimates in their entirety within the normal ten-minute speaking slots allocated to each member? Agreed.

I welcome the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, and the Minister of State, Deputy Mary Butler, and their officials to our meeting to consider the 2022 Revised Estimates. I thank them for providing a briefing note thereon. I propose that the Minister make his opening remarks, after which I will invite members to ask general questions on Vote 38.