Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentations. My first question is for Mr. Watt and relates to his opening statement. He spoke about the increase in the budget over the last seven years from €4.6 billion to €8.1 billion. If one takes inflation into account, however, while there is an increase in real terms in the number of staff and so on, the same percentage increase has not occurred in relation to service to patients. Have the reasons for that been identified? Mr. Watt spoke about infrastructure and I fully accept that but are there other reasons as well? Have they been identified and are they going to be dealt with?