Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This question is primarily related to the overspend and the excess in respect of the Department of Health that we have seen in recent years. Is it definitive that the Department of Health will be over budget this year by approximately €700 million? They are not necessarily budget expenditure ceilings. They appear to be negotiated ceilings. In respect of the Department of Health, it is inevitable that it will exceed its expenditure ceiling, not through any fault of its own but that the budgeted ceiling was meaningless to begin with. In acknowledgment of that fact, there appears to be no enforcement procedures, which can make a mockery of the initial expenditure ceiling we talk about. What assurances can the Minister give that this is not the case and that the expenditure ceilings are an important control over expenditure?

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