Health Minister quotes scripture in HSE Service Plan announcement
The Health Minister Leo Varadkar is admitting that the Health Service Executive is under-funded.
Mr Varadkar made the comments at the launch of the HSE's Service Plan for 2015, which contains the first spending increase since 2008.
The HSE will have an extra €115m to spend next year, an increase of 1%, after the deficit for 2014 is met.
Mental health and disability services will get more funding, while 1,700 permanent frontline jobs will be filled across the HSE.
However the Health Minister says there are still a lot of challenges facing the health sector.
Mr Varadkar said: "I don't often quote scripture, I was drawn to the Gospel according to Luke, particularly Luke 9:16, which is the parable of the loaves and the fishes.
"What we are trying to do here is meet so many enormous demands, feeding the 5,000 with very tight and very difficult resources."
