In recent days it was indicated to the House that the Minister for the Environment and Local Government expects the ordinary Joe and Mary Soap to finance benchmarking in his Department by paying exorbitant increases in refuse collection charges. This is mainly due to the fact that the Minister for Finance, Deputy McCreevy, has refused to provide the necessary funding. Is the situation the same in the Department of Health and Children which requires €22.5 million to finance a service relating to such a serious and life-threatening disease? For some strange and obscene reason that money is not available or is not being given to the Department of Health and Children to allow it to extend this essential service. Who is running the country? Is it the apostle of fiscal rectitude in Kildare – the Minister for Finance – or is it the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste or the Cabinet? I can find no plausible, logical reason that €22.5 million cannot be spent on such an essential service. People's lives are at risk. I ask the Minister to answer the questions I have raised. I hope and pray that in the coming days and weeks the reality and seriousness of this situation will come home to some people who sit at the Cabinet table.