andMr. Creed asked the Minister for Health if he is now in a position to announce the amount of the health grant which each local authority will receive in the current year as, in the absence of this information, local authorities are unable to strike a rate for the year 1971-72 in accordance with their statutory obligation.
Private Notice Question.
The information will be available to all local authorities by Monday morning next but in the case of those authorities which are meeting on or before Monday, special arrangements are being made to have the information conveyed to them tomorrow in good time before their meetings.
Would the Minister for Health not agree that he gave a similar answer to me a fortnight ago and either because he could not or did not want to, he did not honour that undertaking to give me the information within a week? The Minister gave me a similar undertaking in a radio interview a week ago. Is there any evidence that what the Minister says is likely to happen? Surely somebody must have prevented the Minister from doing what he so obviously wanted to do?
This is a matter of budgetary consideration. There were delays, which I could not have envisaged in making final decisions in relation to the budgetary matters. These matters include the amount of grants to be made available to health authorities. The only information I can give the House at this moment, because the grants have to be distributed according to a given order among all the health authorities, is that since the final details have been worked out a supplementary estimate to be taken the week after next covers the cost of increased remuneration for health staffs. If their increased remuneration had been apportioned as between State grant and health rate expenditure on the same basis as is normally the case the automatic increase in the health rate to cover the debit balance on the 1970-71 account would amount to an average increase in the rates of 3s in the £. In fact, the whole of the cost of remuneration increases is being met by a State grant. That will be some consolation to the Deputies.
Does this mean that the only thing the Department of Health are prepared to accept as part of the increase in rates is the amount that would be equivalent to the increase in wages?
I have not said that. I said that the £4.85 million Supplementary Estimate for my Department prevents health authorities from having to provide a debit balance from the year 1970-71 representing the increase of remuneration which was not foreseen by them, quite naturally, in the estimates which they struck for 1970-71. If I had divided that amount according to the way the grants were given for this year the rates to cover that debit balance would be up by 3s in the £ on an average.
Surely the Minister accepts that in view of the fact that a decision has been taken at budgetary level on the amount to be allocated to each authority, in view of the fact that he has this information available to him and of the fact that the House will not be meeting next week, and also in view of the fact that the precise amount of each grant is not necessarily required by this House, could he not give us the general amount per £ which his Department will meet? Last year the Minister mentioned 2s in the £. This year are we to assume that the figure is 2s, 3s or 4s? Surely the information is known to the Minister and surely the House is entitled to get this information?
I have answered the Deputies as far as I can. The computation on this occasion is not necessarily on the same basis as it was last year. It is not necessary for me to spell it out in this way. The officers in my Department are engaged at this very moment in making the distribution.
The Government say they are fighting off a credit squeeze.
If the Minister makes the announcement in Monaghan he will have a red face the following week.
I am not making the announcement in Monaghan.