Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Having also attended the meeting of the Committee on Budgetary Oversight yesterday, I was disappointed at the amount of information made available to the committee, contrary to what was promised.

In regard to health, the amount provided in respect of the overspend on health is €782 million, which, as pointed out earlier by Deputy Seán Barrett, is an astonishing amount. Less than a couple of weeks after we received that information, the chief executive of the HSE told us that if we were going to have a functioning health service a further €9 billion would be required over a number of years.

Like the Taoiseach I have attended many Cabinet sub-committees. There are five Ministers attached to the Department of Health and numerous public servants in that Department and in the HSE. I have attended meetings of the Cabinet sub-committee on health at which there were so many people trying to gain access one could have sold tickets for them. As I said, the chief executive of the HSE has stated that on top of the current €782 million spend on health services an additional €9 billion is needed. In the context of the Budgetary Oversight Committee, is it possible for Members to be given more details on the health spend such that we can find out what is happening to people's hard earn taxes, USC contributions and so on? They are paying to fund provision of a proper health service that does not allow elderly, sick people to remain on hospital trolleys indefinitely, which is something we all want.

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