Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Government and the Departments decided to err on the side of trying to meet the needs of the people. Two issues arise. First of all is it being suggested, and I am not saying Mr. Moloney suggested it, that other Departments should have cut down on expenditure in order to allow the Department of Health to get an increased level of expenditure.

That is against the background of Covid having been managed - and managed well - with the only things remaining being legacy issues that could be dealt with in one, two, three or whatever number of years. That is one side. The other side is that I have felt for a long time that there is a need for some kind of dead reckoning where expenditure in the Department of Health is concerned. While I am aware that the health service is demand-led, with construction projects such as the national children's hospital, the message given to the public was wrong. The presumption in the case of the children's hospital was that it was going to be built for between €500 million and €600 million, but that was never the case. The quantity surveyors had never given any indication of that but somebody plucked the figure out of the air for their own reasons and decided to run with it, with the result that members of the public were astounded by the level of overrun. There has not been a level of overrun. There has been cost exactly in line with what the quantity surveyor decided. A recognition that one cannot speculate and then decide to paint the picture according to the speculation is needed because it does not work that way.

The Department over which Mr. Moloney has control is a very important one and I agree with the reasons for that. It is not so many years ago that we got into a terrible tizzy and had a financial crash due to not watching what was happening. There are still warnings on the horizon that it could happen again because of a shift in circumstances. I do not agree with the suggestion that the public and the Department of Health are astounded. The Opposition claims to have superior knowledge but its members do not. I mean no disrespect to them but their knowledge is based on propaganda and that does not always work. We could serve this country with propaganda during the financial crash and immediately afterwards. We should not forget where we were after the financial crash. Everybody had sympathy for us but nobody had the answer. There were various speculators from at home and abroad who put forward theories to solve our problems that were never called upon. We need to take a rain check and a deep breath.

The last point I will make is on deficit budgeting in the Department of Health while the national budget records a surplus. Is it not true that much comment has focused on the idea that because the money is there, we have to get it and pay for it? That is crazy economics. Wherever one goes, that approach has crashed in the past. The growth and development polices in the EU were ignored not only by this country but in several others as well and we all paid a price. My advice, therefore, is that we be realistic about it. If we go down the road of saying we can get the money by running a deficit instead of a surplus, the Opposition or the Government must explain where it will get the money, which Government Department will have its budget curtailed and whether taxation will be imposed. The wealthy will be mentioned immediately but we know about the wealthy. Venezuela had them but it does not have them now. As a Member of these Houses, I have heard various speculation over the years but none as bad as some of the ventures we entered into in the past ten years or more. We need to avoid that and ensure we do not have a recurrence. The message to be taken from this is that we must demand more accurate budgeting than we have been getting and that we need answers to that. The association of the public and private sectors has to be separated.

We should evaluate where value for money is being achieved as well. Deputy Doherty made the point that people are waiting at accident and emergency departments. I have had that experience with a family member. When one makes a complaint, the answer given is that the patient was triaged. The patient was not triaged. The patient was partly triaged and went home because they were waiting five, ten or 11 hours. Why were they waiting? It was because there was a minuscule number of staff available and that is before one goes into the system at all. If there are not sufficient staff to ensure a through-flow of patients, then we are not dealing with the situation at all. Does Mr. Moloney have any final remarks to make?