Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

There is a statutory obligation on the Department of Health and the HSE to bring in a budget that lives within the Vote, which is decided in this House. There are difficulties, there are arguments to be made and there are various ways of doing things. We need to be very conscious of that. In addition, as we speak, a deficit is being run up by the HSE. It is not as if we have an expandable pot of money. Those days are gone and we must live within that budget.

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