Health budget talks hold up other departments

Complex negotiations around the Department of Health spend are holding up other departments as ministers continue to hammer out the details of Budget 2017.

While around eight departments have managed to agree their packages for next year, a senior Government source said these may still change as “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed”.

The Department of Health, which had a total budget of over €13.5bn last year, is among the departments with the largest spends and so it is expected that negotiations may go down to the wire ahead of Tuesday’s budget.