Mr. Colm Desmond:

I would not make the distinction as strongly as it may have come across. It is a very broad range of services provided across a very large budget every year. Therefore, pressures will inevitably begin to emerge in a number of points during the year. The HSE will indicate to the corresponding Department officials if it believes there are pressures emerging and that would become more definitive through the performance supporting process that I described. There will be interrogation by the Department of the HSE and by HSE senior management of the different programme areas within the Health Service Executive, which cover a vast range of services, as to the basis upon which a particular budget is under pressure. I would not like the Deputy to take the view that one area is treated more preferentially to another because we have not gone into the detail of each particular area to that extent.