Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

In that context, many tough decisions have to be made. The priority in cancer, which is very important, has to be that we improve the quality of treatments by investing in the expertise we need in the eight designated centres. That was €15 million. That money had to be found. It is not easy to find such sums of money. If staff costs account for up to 80% of one's costs, one has to find savings from the remaining 20%. We also want to continue with cancer screening because it picks up women who currently have cancer and treats them. That saves 80% to 90% of women, which is a very high success rate. Many other countries have had screening programmes for 20 years. We have only been running one since September.

We are getting very good value since the central procurement agency was established across a host of areas in the Health Service Executive. On capital plans, for example, I am advised that it is getting reductions of 20% and 25% on what was envisaged. The HSE cannot go to procurement unless we give it the money to procure. As Deputy Kenny well knows, one cannot go into a tendering situation to procure unless one will be in a position to honour that procurement.

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