There is no more money in Eastern Regional Health Authority coffers for hospitals or health boards this year, the chief executive of the authority said last night.
Mr Michael Lyons said that while negotiations were ongoing with the major Dublin hospitals, they were concentrating on agreeing the levels of elective surgery and emergency work the hospitals could do this year.
"All the funding made available to the ERHA by the Department has been handed out," he said. The level of elective surgery in certain areas will have to be capped, he confirmed. However, cancer, renal and cardiology services would be "protected".
He said activity levels in hospitals last year "went through the roof". This year they would have to "sit within the funding" provided but it was expected, he said, that services would be maintained at approved levels for last year. The approved levels for last year and the actual outturn, however, were two different things.
Negotiations with hospitals and health boards were, he added, at an advanced stage and should be concluded within a fortnight.
The major Dublin teaching hospitals including the Mater, St James's, Tallaght and Beaumont have already warned they face a €100 million deficit unless they receive more funding. In other years hospitals were often able to bargain with the ERHA for more money but Mr Lyons said things were "tight" this year.
Meanwhile, on the subject of the Brennan report on financial management in the health service, the contents of which were reported in this newspaper in January, Mr Lyons said he rejected outright its assertion that there was a management vacuum at the heart of the health service.
He said health boards were accountable for their spending to the Department, the comptroller and auditor general and the public accounts committee. However, he said he agreed with many of the reports recommendations such as its conclusions that consultants should have to work longer hours and should have a role in financial management.