Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Mr. Gloster and all the witnesses for being with us. As Deputies, we have seen a significant increase in the budget allocated to the HSE in recent years, in part because of initial spending in response to Covid-19. In many cases, however, much spending has been embedded. We are now at a point where we are spending more than €23 billion. As the body responsible for managing public accounts, it would be remiss of this committee not to ask questions about why we are in a position where there is a very high likelihood that a Supplementary Estimate will again be needed. I want to give Mr. Gloster the opportunity to outline to us why that is happening. I would be even more interested in hearing what we are going to do now to ensure the same issue does not arise again next year. This issue came long before Mr. Gloster arrived. There has been a roughly 39% increase in spending since 2019. It would be hard to overspend having got 40% more of your household budget and yet the HSE, because of increased activity admittedly, are in that space. There is considerable concern among the members of this committee that it has happened.