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

Will that mean that those on the front line will be able to depend on the continuation of funding to the end of the year? This year has obviously still to be dealt with, but can that happen in subsequent years?

We have had this discussion with the Department of Health. Again and again, and I have seen this and raised it every year after the budget, the question arose whether sufficient funding was available to the Department of Health, in the context of the budget, to ensure the delivery of health services as required. Every year I was told "Yes". This goes back a long time, more than ten years, but it does not always apply. The question continues. Have we got, or will we get to, a situation whereby we can be assured that the Department of Health is entirely in control of expenditure and the expenditure that takes place, and which must take place at any given time, depending on the various contingencies that arise? They do arise and it is important that at the beginning of the year each Department identifies exactly the most likely area such overruns can come from. Mr. Moloney seemed to indicate that is now being dealt with. We hope that it is because it is bad for the Department of Health and its morale. It means the Opposition spends its time indirectly criticising that Department for an alleged inability to provide services. That is worrying from the point of view of the population.