Dr. Seán Healy:

There are other anomalies, but the first I mentioned was the outstanding expenditure and overrun in 2017. The director general of the HSE stated there was an overrun. We looked in the budget when it was published on budget day for some indication this overrun was being dealt with. We listened to the press conferences and read the press releases and all of the documentation. We cannot find any evidence it is being dealt with.

The second issue is our reading of the provision for pay increases, which seems to be too low. This is on the basis the organisation that must be funded has approximately 100,000 employees.

Therefore, given the increases, which were not huge, that were granted and the number of people and multiplying it out, it seems to us that the amount allocated might be a little more than half of what is required and falls substantially short. We think it is €100 million short of what the bill will cost. We may be wrong and I would love to be proved wrong. However, if we are right, that €100 million has to be taken from somewhere within the current HSE budget.

The third issue relates to the new expenditures that were announced in the budget. There seems to be little provision for the things I have just pointed out. It seems to us that it will not be possible within the allocated budget to maintain the existing level of service while implementing all of the new and welcome initiatives that were announced. That is where we are coming from.