I want to raise the serious situation in health. The ink was not dry on the budget when we heard on Friday evening about major freezes in the recruitment of junior doctors, home helps and in all those areas where people are needed at the front line to deal with the most basic needs. Where is the accountability and why do we not have questions with the Minister for Health and Mr. Watt, the Secretary General? This is an outrageous attack on ordinary people. Junior doctors run our hospitals and home helps keep people out of hospitals and safe and healthy at home. They cut the weakest, the lowest hanging fruit, when waste continues in the children's hospital and there is waste across the board, with no accountability.

I know the Minister was buried in the budget, but the chief executive tried to resurrect it on Sunday on national radio. It is shocking that three or four days after the budget, a decision was made last Friday to cut these areas. That is in spite of the agreement the Minister made with those junior doctors last year, in order to avert a strike, that 800 more of them would be recruited. We are facing an ongoing disaster in health into the winter and the Minister is not even accountable to the Dáil about it.

I will come back on a few of the points. To be very clear, the budget is agreed by the entire Government and the entire Government is responsible and accountable for the budget. It is not agreed bilaterally between the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, Deputy Donohoe, and the Minister for Health, Deputy Donnelly, and any other Minister. The budget was agreed by the Government and approved by the House. That is essentially how it works. I just want to be very clear about that.

The Minister for Health is responsible for the health budget. The Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform is responsible for expenditure in the round. Both take questions regularly in the House on matters that pertain to their briefs, and I am sure they will continue to do so.

In relation to the motion on the situation in the Middle East, 200 minutes have been set aside for a debate and discussion on it tomorrow. I think that is a considerable amount of time for people to discuss it. The Tánaiste has engaged with spokespeople and some of the party leaders about the motion.

No, he has not.

I am sure he is happy to engage.

No, he has not.

No, he has not.

He has not.

I am sure he is happy to engage. He has engaged with some and I am sure he is happy to do so again.

He was very selective.

We believe the motion is balanced and does provide a strong statement-----

Who did he talk to?

-----on behalf of this House.

Who did he talk to?

We hope it will get cross-party support.

We need to know who the Tánaiste spoke to-----

Just finally-----

The Taoiseach should be allowed to speak without interruption.

-----because what the Taoiseach has said is completely wrong.

In regard to the recruitment restrictions in the HSE, the HSE still has the authority to hire additional home helps, up to a certain level, and the restrictions do not apply to the private providers which provide most of the home help. To be very clear on doctors, despite the talk and the description that we often hear of a recruitment and retention crisis in the health service, we have seen a surge in recruitment in the past three years. There are more than 20,000 more people working in the health service than there were three years ago, including 2,000 more doctors.

They are not on the front line.

There are 2,000 more doctors and 6,000 more nurses than was the case three years ago.

There are more managers.

The recruitment restrictions do not apply to nursing and midwifery, GPs, GPs in training, consultants and doctors who are on specialist training.

They apply to junior doctors.

They only apply to service posts. These are not doctors in training. The HSE had authorisation to hire 500, and it hired 770. No public body should hire staff it does not have the authority or the budget to fund. It does not happen in schools, it does not happen in Garda stations, it does not happen in Departments and it should not happen in the health service.

It is somebody else's fault now.