Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

With a deficit of over €400 million in the health service, people were very concerned to read that a substantial amount of money had been hidden under the mattress in the Department of Health in the past few months, both for capital expenditure and the National Treatment Purchase Fund. Many of the people who depend on home help hours must be wondering why the number of home help hours was cut when €8 million could have been transferred from the National Treatment Purchase Fund to the home help servcie some months ago. In the context of the Health Information Bill, this all points to a complete absence of transparency in the budgeting and financing of the health service and how they are conducted within the Department. Obviously, large sums of money remained unspent for most of the year. We cut the number of home help hours and disability payments and now people will ask why did that happen if €8 million was available. When will the Health Information Bill be published?

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