Howlin confident cuts in health budget will be met

Minister for Public Expenditure Brendan Howlin has expressed confidence the budgetary targets on health spending will be met.

His comment follows the revelation in The Irish Times yesterday that the Government has been told close to €200 million in health savings for this year will not materialise.

The Minister, speaking today on RTÉ’s The Week In Politics, said the Haddington Road agreement on pay and productivity in the public service pay was a “negotiated enabler’’ of real savings.

“Every line department…the HSE directly…was involved in the negotiations and signed off on it,’’ he added.

“Like every other department, I know that it is going to live up to the targets because it is part of the overall budgetary arithmetic.’’

Last week, senior Department of Health and HSE officials provided a confidential consultancy report to Mr Howlin's department setting out the potential shortfall in the figures.

Under the HSE’s service plan for the year, the health service was expected to generate savings of €290 million under the Haddington Road agreement which came into effect last July.

The plan also earmarked further pay savings of €108 million to be achieved by additional measures.

However, the report, drawn up by PA consultants, suggested none of the €108 million euro in savings was likely to be delivered and the €290 million euro basic target would not be fully reached.