Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

What I hear from the Minister causes concern because the Minister is telling us the HSE told him towards the end of last year that it was not a big enough budget and that there would be an overrun. I will read back on exactly what the Minister has said but my understanding of what he said is he heard what the HSE said and told it to go back and come up with a service plan that was within budget. I assume that is what the Minister did. The Minister got the budget he got, which the Dáil voted on. The HSE came back to the Minister late last year and said it was not enough money for the service plan so the Minister had to do one of two things. He had to either increase the budget or reduce the service plan. Did the Minister instruct the HSE to reduce the service plan to make sure the HSE could deliver on budget? Presumably he did. If he did that, what has happened to lead to a nearly €800 million overrun? Saying things like Storm Emma and unforeseen events is not an acceptable rationale. If one is running a €16 billion or €17 billion healthcare system, storms and flu epidemics happen and one plans for the unforeseen and makes sure there are contingency budgets in place. Did the Minister ask the HSE to reduce its service plan to a level that should have allowed it and the Minister to deliver according to budget?

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