Ms Oonagh Buckley:

The Deputy will be pleased to hear that we are going to need a supplementary budget this year. Perhaps she will not be pleased to hear it. We are maxing out our expenditure in a number of areas. It is fair to say that the large underspend last year, of €22 million, was because we got a supplementary budget for emergency electricity generation. The calculations were done at very high speed. The money was allocated but then it did not need to be drawn down by EirGrid because it had a supply chain issue related to putting in the generation. That generation is now in. It is in testing at the moment – I am referring to the first one – and it will be up and running this year.

The Deputy is quite right. We try to spend everything we can. Sometimes we do not get there and sometimes there are delays. Sometimes another report on remediation is needed but we do try to spend as much as we can.