Liz McManus (Wicklow, Labour)

The Minister has not answered the question which has been asked by several Deputies. Why was the money not spent on the capital programme? What was lost as a result? Where was the money spent, which is almost equivalent — the Tánaiste is simply playing with words at this stage — to the amount overspent on the revenue, or the day to day expenditure side. On what was it spent? Why was there such an enormous divergence, of more than €50 million, between a forecast in the middle of December and the middle of January? Allowing for Christmas, this was period of a couple of weeks.

Who has been the Accounting Officer from 1 January 2005? Surely the Tánaiste now accepts that she was far too hasty in establishing a new authority to take over the entire management of the health service without a CEO and without proper preparation.

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