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

Year on year, our difficulty is that we highlight time and again the inadequacies in terms of the Estimate that is brought to this House. The Government will be well aware of it as well. Even the language the Minister uses in terms of the HSE service plan, for example, in the context of unspecified savings, is an indication that he is grasping for or pretending that he has the funding to run the health services for the year ahead. That is what is happening year in, year out.

The Minister states consistently that there has always been a Supplementary Estimate from the Department of Health to the HSE. That has been because of a change in policy, but everybody knows that one addresses the Estimate from a no-change policy perspective first and if there are changes in policy, one either adjusts the budget forward or up or down in that context.

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