Mr. Michael Tutty:

I will take the question on health expenditure. If there are overruns every year, there is obviously something wrong in the system and it needs to be changed. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform published a paper on this subject examining why it is happening and what needs to be done. Undoubtedly, the forecasts each year are not based on reality. Some €700 million does not just suddenly arrive as the year goes on, there has to have been a shortfall right from the start in the figures. We need to find a mechanism where correct or reasonable forecasts are given in the budget, rather than unrealistic ones. I know from my days in the Department of Finance that the Department can be at fault in saying that the HSE cannot have all the money it is looking for and so the HSE has to go back and see where it can cut back. The HSE then it finds that it cannot cut back so there are overruns. There may be fault on both sides in that respect.

There needs to be much more supervision of the expenditure as the year goes on so that big overruns are not just discovered in October but they are flagged as the year goes on so that there is time to take action. There is no time to cut back on other expenditure in October or to raise more revenue. We need to look at how the health expenditure estimates are formed and how they are supervised and managed over the year. Even the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council would not find ways of offsetting it if it was only identified in October.