Harney facing opposition fire over HSE budget blunder
The Tánaiste and Minister for Health, Mary Harney, is set to come under further fire from the opposition today over a €56m miscalculation in her department's budget estimates
The Government admitted yesterday that the Health Service Executive (HSE) had mistakenly believed it had the money left over from its capital budget for 2005 and could carry it through to 2006.
However, it has now emerged that the €56m had actually been spent on day-to-day services, meaning the HSE's €558m capital budget for this year will have to be reduced by around 10%.
Fine Gael TD Richard Bruton has vowed to confront Ms Harney on the issue in the Dáil today, saying he wanted to know how such a mistake could have been made.
"The consequence is that people who are waiting for capital investment in real capacity in our hospitals around the country are not seeing that happen," he said.
"That money has been sacrificed for some other unexplained purpose to paper over a crack in her finances."
Labour Party TD Joan Burton, meanwhile, said the minister had a duty to explain the financial blunder, particularly in light of the fiasco surrounding the €150m PPARS system.
| Related Stories: |
|
