Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I cannot give that guarantee to the committee. It has been an ongoing feature of health budgets in recent years that it has required a supplementary budget, and a substantive one. The level of that supplementary budget has varied over the years. In some years we have been successful in meeting the needs of patients but also containing the Supplementary Estimate to a lower level while in other years it has been higher. Obviously, this is one of the years in which the Supplementary Estimate is at a higher level - in gross terms, just over €1 billion. It would be foolhardy for me to give a commitment to the Deputy that no such Supplementary Estimate will be required next year. What we will be aiming to do across next year is to do all we can to contain it at a lower level, and in an ideal world not to need one at all, but to continue to meet the demands that patients expect of our health service.

I am acutely aware that the work that happens in our hospitals is really tough and amazingly valuable and I also know the great challenges that the Department of Health confronts every day. I am very sympathetic to it but, as always, what I try to do is get the balance right between the money we can allocate to it and the needs that it has, which for every Department are multiples of what I have available to allocate.