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

The HSE is not being enabled to deliver the services it outlined in its service plan for 2014. Waiting lists have increased; for example, only recently in University Hospital Limerick 47 patients were waiting on trolleys. The notion that the HSE has managed to maintain services is simply not credible by any stretch of the imagination when one considers the difficulties health services face every day in front-line provision.

That is evident in emergency departments and outpatient waiting lists.

The key problem stems from last year when the previous Minister for Health, without support and possibly lacking all credibility at the Cabinet table, was unable to deliver a meaningful budget to fund the HSE service plan for 2014. No one inside or outside the House believed last year's budget was sustainable and it was in difficulty from the word go. Hopeful phrases such as "unspecified savings" and "probity" were included in a service plan that was meant to deliver services for those who needed them the most. Will the Minister have an honest and up-front appraisal of the funding required in 2014 and engage in a meaningful discussion aimed at ensuring the Department secures a sustainable budget that will provide the services required?

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