David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I will cover four issues as quickly as I can. First, with regard to the updated briefing document the Minister gave me, I wish to return to the issue of the access to care fund. The earlier presentation and budget 2021 featured a subhead of €697 million - €497 million for Covid measures and €200 million for the access to care fund. In the briefing document, the access to care fund from that subhead now amounts to €7 million. The document states that this is not the full spend of the access to care fund, in terms of the €200 million, that this is more likely to be approximately €130 million and it will now come from core acute expenditure. Is it correct that whereas €200 million was allocated on budget day as part of the €697 million figure under the subhead I mentioned, only €7 million for access to care will now come from that subhead and the balance, to give a total figure of €130 million, will come from core acute expenditure? Is that a correct reading?