Ulick Burke (Fine Gael)

An officer of the Health Service Executive, who attended the same group meeting as we had held earlier, stated that he was quite shocked by the shortfall in the services which he had seen. He stated that there were shortfalls at all times due to the lack of proper funding for the services in the past. He was also concerned at the manner in which moneys were distributed in the west using a ratio of 3:2:1. These sentiments were expressed last week and therefore I cannot understand how the Health Service Executive has reported to the Minister of State in the manner stated in his reply, which describes a different situation. This must be taken in hand.