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.

The departments of Children, Social Protection, and Housing are also expected to be involved in last-minute negotiations.

The Department of Health is hoping to be told its overall budget by the end of this week, but until then no decision can be made on what areas will receive a boost in resources and support.

The situation has been complicated further by the fact that Health has been subdivided in this Government, with three additional junior ministries. The four junior ministers — Helen McEntee, Marcella Corcoran Kennedy, Finian McGrath, and Catherine Byrne — will be fighting to obtain as much of the allocation as possible.

A spokesperson for Health Minister Simon Harris said: “Some departments’ budgets are bigger and more complicated than others, like Health.” The spokesperson said it is “extremely important” to get all aspects of the Health spend right.

Fianna Fáil is pushing for an extra €100m towards third-level education, which may delay the Department of Education allocation.

It is unlikely Fine Gael will give in to that demand as it is not contained in the confidence and supply agreement.

Social Protection Minister Leo Varadkar yesterday hinted a €5 increase in the State pension, for which Fianna Fáil has been lobbying, would have to come at the expense of “competing priorities” such as measures to help the self-employed, people with disabilities, and lone parents.

“I don’t yet have an agreed package for social welfare, and it may well be the case that’s not agreed for a number of days,” said Mr Varadkar.

“I wouldn’t like to say I want to give all those resources to one group in society and have nothing for the self-employed, the disabled, the carers, and nothing around assisting lone parents in getting into education and into work.

“Budgets are difficult things to put together, it’s easy to come up with the numbers of how much things cost; what’s hard to get is agreement.”

Meanwhile, the committee on budgetary oversight has found “bottlenecks” in the areas of education, social housing, childcare, and broadband because of a lack of investment during the recession. It said capital expenditure should be “a priority” in the coming years.

In a report published yesterday, it called for greater investment in cycle paths in Budget 2017 and a fast-tracking of Metro North. Other incentives to encourage a low-carbon economy should be introduced to avoid fines from missing EU emissions targets.