Colm Keaveney (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The HSE service plan was deliberately designed to prevent recruitment. Last year there was a commitment to provide for €35 million in ring-fenced funding for mental health services. That broken promise has resulted in the Minister of State designing a time delay which deliberately prevents the recruitment of staff that would address the waiting lists we have described. In the forthcoming budget, does the Minister of State intend to address that situation and restore the moneys that were cut in last year's provision that was ring-fenced in the programme for Government - the figure of €35 million? Is it her intention to restore that €15 million, as was the rhetoric at the time, on top of the €35 million specifically designed for the recruitment of specialist staff?

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