Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)

I accept the Minister is in a difficult position. If I understand correctly, the Minister is saying that the money was spent from the wrong subhead, but it was spent in areas where it was needed and now we have the problem of trying to identify the money elsewhere, but that it may well be needed in the area from which it will be taken. This is the bind we are in. Some of the Minister's earlier comments suggest he agrees with me that even initially the fair deal scheme was not ideal, based as it was on property prices and putting liens on people's houses. Does he agree that is what makes the terrible bind in which we find ourselves? This is all happening against the background of the IMF-EU deal and the austerity programme.

I know it is not entirely up to the Minister, but should we not say that if we seek other funding, it cannot come from robbing other vital health services? It must come from elsewhere and that requires a Government willing to impose taxes on the wealthy and get money from those who can afford it in order to fund the vital health services without which ordinary people will suffer and face a continuing crisis in the health service.

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