Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 22 March 2016
407. Deputy Billy Kelleher asked the Minister for Health if, in December 2015, the Health Service Executive advised his Department in a letter of a risk that the cost of delivering all the services set out in the 2016 Health Service Executive service plan could lead to a financial deficit at the end of the year of between €300 million and €500 million. [5282/16]
View answerThe HSE Director General wrote to me on 4 December 2015 advising that the HSE Directorate had adopted the 2016 Service Plan and submitted a copy of the Plan for my consideration and approval. In his letter, the DG stated "on page 3 of the Service Plan reference is made to the substantial financial risk which is being managed within the plan. The overall scale of this risk is in the order of €500 million of which €200 million relates to service delivery/performance areas including acute and community services".
I want to emphasise that, in this letter, the DG is referring to a substantial financial risk which is being managed within the Service Plan and not to a year end 2016 financial deficit of €500 million.
It is in this context that, when formally approving the HSE Service Plan 2016, I advised that it was important that management focus and the activities of all units are, from the outset of 2016, fully aligned with the Government's budgetary strategy and the delivery of the levels of services set out in the Service Plan.
