Mr. Bernard Gloster:

I will not judge anybody on whether they failed or not. I take responsibility for our position. The health service budget is subject to a health budget oversight group, which includes my officials, senior officials from the Department of Health, and senior officials from the Department of public expenditure. They discuss the expenditure throughout the year, including discussion about when it is starting to go offline. There will be discussion about what might be the causes behind that. I have no doubt inflationary pressures formed part of those discussions throughout the latter part of 2023, if not earlier in the year. That is the first part. The second part is that when the Estimates process is going on, we provide the Department of Health with all of the information and analysis we have. We usually come to an agreed position with them, and I believe we did this year. They then present those estimates and that analysis to the Department of public expenditure. There are then bilateral meetings between officials from both Departments culminating in meetings between the two Secretaries General and the two Ministers. I do not participate.