Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Yes, an caiteachas. In the end of the day the programmes of the Department have been discussed here recently as part of the Estimates process. I am concerned that we are into the last quarter of the year and looking at what the Department did for the first seven, eight or nine months. There is a very serious underspend in the Department, even against its profiles which themselves are skewed towards everything happening in the last three months. Why everything happens in the last three months I will never fully comprehend.

The Minister might explain. My understanding is that we are in a kind of no man's land as to who is whom. When I looked for the Minister's expenditure report for September, because they have not issues the Revised Estimates volume, it encompasses both the rural and regional affairs and her own Department. I have the Exchequer returns here. That is because, for whatever strange reason, even though the Department of Rural and Community Development was set up on 27 July, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform has not seen fit to issue Revised Estimates to go with it. I am told the total amount of capital for the year that the Minister had was €119 million starting. The Minister profiled that €62 million of that would be spent by the end of September but, in reality, only €38 million of that capital was spent, which is an underspend of €25 million. Most of this relates to regional and rural affairs. I have been saying from the beginning of the year that the Department, when it was under Deputy Humphreys' control, would underspend its budget on the capital side and there were great howls of denial about that. As the year goes on, it gets worse and worse. For example, €12 million is provided in the Estimate for town and village renewal. Not one project has yet been sanctioned. The Minister cannot account for what happened after the end of July but she can account for what happened up to July. I have it all in parliamentary questions. There is €40 million for the Leader programme. I welcome that the Minister, Deputy Ring, has moved €5 million out of it into the local improvement scheme, LIS. I had been badgering on the record here about that for a long time. Some €11 million was spent on the administration which, for some unexplained reason, is a capital expense and €6 million on projects. Even if all of those projects were brought to fruition by the end of the year - which is very unlikely - the Minister still has a huge hole of approximately €20 million. What I am saying is that in the months we are now looking at, the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, was in control of the expenditure here. How did it arise that such a monumental underspend has occurred?

Two further developments occurred. Some €80 million was brought forward and paid to local authorities in December 2016 for work not done. On 21 September, I got a reply to a parliamentary question stating that only 55% of that money had been spent. I received a reply from the Minister stating that of the €13 million carried forward from last year into this year, only €3 million had been spent, that is, €10 million had not been spent.

I will add it up for the Minister. Of the original allocation on the capital side, irrespective of the Department it is in, and I do not care what Department because it should be on the ground, there is €81 million to be spent between the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht and the rural side of the new Department; there is approximately €10 million of the carry-forward that has not been spent and there is €8 million of the funding that was given to local authorities last year but has not been spent on the ground, which adds up to €99 million to be spent in three months. All the Minister spent in nine months is €38 million. Can the Minister explain to the committee how the Department, for the second year in a row, is failing to spend its money?