Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy set up the Health Service Executive to provide world-class services. As he knows, the HSE has always had a difficulty in spending the money it received, although it may have claimed every year for more and more money. We cannot return to a position in which we continuously throw money at a system that is not reformed or capable of dealing with a situation that has evolved over very many years. It was created when the HSE was set up on top of the old health board system.

The taxpayer is putting up €13.6 billion for health this year, so of course there are requirements for reform and the effective expenditure of this money. The important point here is that one cannot employ the professionals who work on the front line - consultants, doctors, nurses and so on - and provide them with proper facilities unless one has the resources to do so. We have never had that, and we will not have it unless we can develop the economy to a point at which it can continuously do that.

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