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

I support A Vision for Change, but I do not support the Government's cherry-picking of certain aspects to meet targets of which I am unaware. The Minister of State underspent the budget last year and failed to protect it under the commitment in the programme for Government to recruit specialists. The Minister of State gave a commitment to the public and the House to restore the budget.

I support the fabric of A Vision for Change and the spirit in which it was designed but, by cherry-picking aspects the Minister of State believed would deliver cost savings in other services where someone had proven incapable of spending a budget properly, she failed to protect her budget. This was the core point.

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