Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am not sure that in health there will ever be enough money to do everything one would like to do, but we have a very substantial budget and there should be enough to maintain the existing level of service and improve it in some instances. To clarify, the €600 million Supplementary Estimate this year does not fill a hole. The Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, and I sought much of that money during the year to make particular policy decisions, including more community beds, more hospital beds, a reduction of the Fair Deal waiting list to four weeks, and the provision of GP care to everyone under six years and everyone over 70 years. I would not like people to be under the misapprehension that all of that is somehow an overrun. It is not. Policy decisions were made during the year, supported by Government, to do more than we had planned to do at the start of the year. In respect of the €600 million being carried over into next year, that is not all recurring expenses; some of it involves one-off payments that will not recur next year. For example, the symphysiotomy payments scheme would be part of that. Not all the €600 million has to be paid again next year.

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