asked the Minister for Health if he is aware of the concern in each health board that services will be reduced to an intolerable level in the current year; and if he will make a statement on the matter.

I am aware of the difficulties involved for health boards in containing their non-capital expenditure in 1985 within approved budgetary levels. Unfortunately in some instances exaggerated statements have been made concerning the implications of the budgetary situation for patient care.

I am pleased to say that a number of health boards have developed a strategy for 1985 which has as one of its main objectives the containment of expenditure within approved allocation levels while at the same time preserving the essential fabric of the services. I am satisfied that it should be possible for all health boards to chart a similar course.

This is the same as the last question.

It is a different question and a different answer. In case the Minister was answering the last question if you will allow me, a Cheann Comhairle, I will read out my question.

No.

I asked the Minister would there be a reduction in the level of services. The Minister did not say whether or not there would be a reduction on the level of services. In reply to the last question he told us he had advised hospitals not to admit patients on Friday. He said the budgets were on targets. I wonder if a deficit of £5.6 million in the Southern Health Board is on target. Does the Minister believe it is something to boast about that there was no supplementary estimate when services are being curtailed? If wards are closing down, the sight testing scheme is being abolished and elderly people who live alone and watch television or read newspapers cannot get their glasses repaired or their eyes tested, and the ad hoc dental scheme is being abolished in a number of areas does the Minister accept that there is a reduction in the level of services?

The last people on earth who would want to reduce the level of services are the health boards. The latest position I have is that the Midland Health Board are well within target now that we have approved of their package. It is within the improved allocation for 1985. In the North Eastern Health Board area the budget within the allocation was approved on 28 January. The North Western Health Board have approved their budget which reconciles with the allocation. The Western Health Board approved measures which would allow expenditure to be contained within the allocation. We had a problem with the Southern Health Board. I had proposals from the South Eastern Health Board. By and large we have had no great difficulty. There is nothing particularly wrong with a hospital saying they do not need to have a certain number of beds filled, for example, in July and August when staff go on holidays or during the Christmas period. As the Deputy knows as a member of the medical profession, if we had 50,000 beds they would be filled by the medical profession. They would be filled anyway. This is one of the realities of acute medical beds. Provide the beds and they will be filled. We have a limited number of beds. There is nothing wrong with a health board saying there is no need to fill all those beds. For anybody who has acute medical or surgical or psychiatric needs, there are lashings of beds. They do not all have to be filled.

Is there a reduction in the level of service? The Minister has told us if there is no need to have a ward open in July it can be closed. A number of wards have been closed as a result of cutbacks even though the medical board believed they should not have been closed. Does the Minister believe the abolition of the sight testing scheme means a reduction in the level of services?

I am entirely unhappy with the decision——

Yes or no.

——of the health boards generally on the dental and opthalmic side. Some fairly easy decisions have been taken.

The Minister accepts that there is a reduction in the level of services.

When a health board decides to stay within their budget that is a health board decision. We in this House devolved responsibility onto them. No matter how unhappy I may be about some aspects of those decisions I must accept them. I say to the health boards: "There is £150 million for 1985. You must deliver the services within that framework". I am quite sure that no health board could comfortably deliver the services, including the dental and opthalmic services, without reductions in those services.

The Minister accepts that there is a reduction?

In some areas.