Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation in respect of the October Exchequer returns, the reason the capital spending for his Department was €61m below profile for this period; his plans to ensure that the full capital spending is implemented before the end of the year; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [53833/12]

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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The Department and its Agencies are extremely diligent and careful in their management and allocation of taxpayer monies in the support of different enterprise objective. The drawdown of exchequer monies through the Enterprise Development Agencies of my Department is based on commitments made in a given year and projected draw-downs against those commitments in the year in question. It must be remembered that drawdown of exchequer financial support by companies or other bodies (e.g. Competency Centres) is demand-led and can only take place if the company or body in question has progressed a given project in line with the agreement entered into with the State at the time of the financial commitment. In addition, there are other timing issues around finalising legal agreements with the private sector when setting up funds, for example under the Innovation Fund initiative, which means that while drawdown will take place, it may be pushed back by some months, thereby showing up as an “underspend” in a particular accounting period.

Due to this demand-led nature of grant payments and issues relating to the timing of expenditure, the bulk of an allocation is often drawn down in the last quarter of the year. The snapshot figure referred to in the Question will not be reflected in the end of year figure and the equivalent figure at the end of November showed the Department was €29m behind its original profile. To ensure that any savings at year end are utilised for job creation purposes, my Department has engaged with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform to use the provisions of the Multi-Annual Capital Envelope Framework whereby a portion of unspent Capital allocations in any year may be carried over to the following year. The outcome of our negotiations will form part of this week’s Budget.