Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

My question was tabled on the assumption that the Health Service Executive service plan would be published this week. I am disappointed that we will not have an opportunity to discuss the plan before the end of the year. The inordinate delay in publishing the plan following the publication of the budget in October is unsatisfactory. Even if one tries to stretch credibility to the nth degree, the difficulty one has with the current HSE service plan is that it is again based on a series of assumptions and premises. When savings were identified in the original back-of-an-envelope estimate for the service plan announced by the Minister in October in the Estimates, it was evident that the Minister was again placing the health service on an unsustainable path in 2014. Officials in the Health Service Executive and the Department of Health have fought a rearguard action in the meantime and the Minister has pretended several times that he stood up to the Minister for Finance with great bravery. How can he expect to deliver health care without cutbacks to services?

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