James Reilly: Government may have ‘cooked the books’ preparing a budget

Minister for children James Reilly has said the Government may have “cooked the books” preparing a budget, and said policies to cut the health spend were doomed to fail.

The Fine Gael deputy leader questioned the savings that were lined up under his former portfolio in health and also revealed that he was close to walking out of government in protest.

He said he and health in general “became the lightning rod for problems” in government in the middle of the Fine Gael-Labour coalition term in power.