Mr. Seamus Coffey:

I am not of the view that the spending in any Department is growing too high. What we want to see is planned and careful analysis of our spending patterns. Each year we set out a budget for the HSE and each year by the time we get to the end of the year it needs a Supplementary Estimate. In some cases it exceeded €1 billion euro and sometimes it has been even higher. That suggests there is a systematic or functional problem with our planning of health spending if every year a supplementary budget is needed. We are not necessarily saying that spending is too high, but if we are assessing a budget at the start of the year, let us have it based on-----