Concern over Irish health sector

THE Irish health sector was singled out by the EU yesterday as an area of concern in terms of controlling the national budget and getting value for money.

However the country got a relatively clean bill of health from the European Commission in its annual report on the economies of the member states.

But Economic Affairs Commissioner Pedro Solbes warned that France, Germany and Italy because of their large public deficits will not be able to balance their budgets by 2006 as required under their current policies.