Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I find it quite extraordinary that we are in a position where the Minister for Health would be preparing to introduce plans here in this House and ask the Dáil to approve a budget which the HSE chief executive and he consider to be entirely inaccurate. This is about parliamentary accountability. Our primary concern should be for the well-being of all those of us who depend on a decent universal public health system. There is a question, however, of accountability. That the Dáil would be expected to pass an Estimate which the Minister himself feels he cannot stand over is quite extraordinary. The reality is in any other parliamentary democracy, that simply would not happen. I do not even think it would happen in the UK, even given the circumstances there at the moment, where a Minister would get his defence in first, acknowledge the Estimate itself is entirely inadequate, and would then ask his colleagues in the Dáil to pass it. It is quite extraordinary and I believe this process needs to be reviewed.

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