Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

That is not what the HSE said. The HSE did not say it could not deliver the service plan. The HSE produced a service plan. It was launched by the then director general and me. It was discussed at the Oireachtas health committee. I am pretty sure it was debated on the floor of the House. It produced it in the knowledge of the resources it had available to it. It did spell out, in correspondence to me, which has been long since published and on page 2 and 3 of the service plan, the risks and the challenges it saw. If one looks back through all service plans, the risks and challenges are always highlighted. Nobody in the HSE said, nor legally could anyone have said, it was producing a service plan it did not believe it had adequate resources to deliver. It has an obligation to produce a service plan it can deliver within the resources. However, having said that it is also clear that when one looks at the HSE's budgetary performance since its establishment, it has almost always required a supplementary budget. The question for all of us in the House and for me as Minister is how we endeavour to move to a better place in that regard. The governance piece we are putting in place is a part of it but I also think reforming the model of healthcare is a part. The Deputy and I have somewhat of a luxury of looking at the available resources from a health prism. The Deputy's party and the Government sat down in budgetary talks last year and had to decide how much money we could give to health and we had to do our very best within that envelope. I did not see anybody agitating for any more than was given on budget day.

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