Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

Gabhaim buíochas leis na Seanadóirí as ucht an deis cúpla focal a rá faoin ábhar seo sa Seanad. I hate confrontational politics for the sake of it, but at times it is important to spell out some basic facts. There is a total contradiction in a party leader saying they would take €3 billion from current spending instead of €1 billion from the capital budget and €2 billion from current spending, as was discussed previously, while the party's members incessantly seek in the House extra current expenditure. When I was going to school there were fairly simple rules in mathematics. While I might not be a genius in many things, I studied mathematics in university and no matter how far I went, the basic laws of mathematics applied. One cannot take away €3 billion and suddenly have a heap of money in one's pocket. We would all love to add to services; I know no one in politics who would not like to provide better services. It is time for those who say they wish to add to every service to show us in the Estimates where they would make the alternative cuts to raise the money to do that. In the case of the Senator's party, it told us not to cut the capital budget, which means an extra €1 billion on the current expenditure side. If the Senator's party does not show us the alternative cuts, it is not being up-front about what it is trying to do.

With regard to the HSE, the Senator is aware we had a meeting in Galway. HSE west has a statutory duty to run the services. I organised for all Members of the Oireachtas in Galway and Roscommon to meet representatives of the HSE. Despite that meeting and many others, I still do not have a clear direction from those Members of the Oireachtas on their budget alternatives.