Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)

Wearing my Department of Public Expenditure and Reform hat, I can confirm to the Deputy and the House that the overruns cannot happen in the HSE this year. This was referred to in the most recent visit of the troika. Everybody must live within the budgets and how the HSE manages its budgets is a matter for the executive in the first instance. It is not the job of the Minister for Health to second-guess those decisions if there is a belief, locally, that a decision like this must be taken. I appreciate the difficulty it causes for people who previously used the service. The overruns are a reality that must be checked between now and 31 December this year.