Public Services Provision
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-28
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Cian O'Callaghan (SD), Dublin Bay North

I appreciate that, but this is what the Minister has been saying publicly for the past number of weeks. What I am seeking to address with him is strong criticism of him and his Department in terms of their budget allocation process.
For example, the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council points out that the Minister's Department got the allocations and estimations in terms of what we would spend on doctors and nurses in the last three months of last year wrong and that every year his Department does not base its budget allocations on what was spent the year before and often reducing them back to an unrealistic level. The council said:
The budgetary allocation was too low from the start. Delivering planned services on budget becomes nearly impossible if funding was never sufficient. That responsibility lies with the Department of Public Expenditure.
It went on to accuse the Minister and his Department of "bad budgeting". The Irish Fiscal Advisory Council doing that is very serious, so what is the Minister doing to address this? The council made recommendations to him on what he should do. Are he and his Department listening to the council and taking what it says on board? Are he and his Department going to change their process or will they continue to just blame the Departments when the independent body is clearly saying the responsibility lies with them?

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-05-28/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-21T01:01:08+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-28