Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We always welcome extra expenditure as long as it is sustainable. If the expenditure ceilings were right in the first place, the Minster would not need to change them. Again, I challenge him, as the Minister in charge of ensuring discipline on expenditure, to state whether that is a good way of doing business. How does it reflect on other Ministers? We can have this debate again. The health budget, in particular, has always proved challenging. It was within profile in the first quarter of the year. The Minister will not be in a position this year to bring forward Supplementary Estimates. Is he confident that the health budget is robust enough to face any challenge that may be ahead? I am looking strictly at waiting lists which are growing longer and longer. The waiting lists published in the past few days were the worst that had ever been seen.

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