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

I thank the Minister of State for her reply. I do not blame her for the recruitment issue but somebody has to take responsibility for it. In the HSE service plan the recruitment of staff was deliberately time delayed because of cuts in mental health service budgets. The Minister of State cannot have it both ways. The difficulties in recruiting arose because somebody made a policy decision not to recruit. That is the difficulty.

The Minister of State, in responding to a question from me over the course of the summer, said that we were 2,900 staff short of the full implementation of A Vision for Change. In 2011, we had a solid commitment on ring-fenced funding on current expenditure. Is the Minister of State satisfied that over the course of the past four years, €35 million per annum was successfully secured? What has been the cumulative current expenditure impact of that with respect to the 2,900 whole-time equivalents?

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