Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In the context of capital funding, from next Monday when the national development plan will be announced, every Department will have multi-annual funding out to 2025. They will know exactly what they will have each year and that gives them every opportunity to plan the delivery of projects, including in ICT. There is a wide definition of what qualifies as capital expenditure. It includes investment in ICT, for example. That is a key issue.

In addition, as the Chairman is aware, there is flexibility to carry forward underspends in the capital space. For each Vote, a maximum of 10% of the current year capital budget can be carried forward into the following year. More than €700 million was carried forward into 2021 as a result of underspends last year and it is inevitable that there will be underspends this year that will be carried forward to next year. That funding will not be lost back to the central Exchequer.

It is more complex in the context of current funding. When people raise the issue of multi-annual funding commitments, what they really want is a commitment to multi-annual increases in funding. We set out the overall framework in the summer economic statement. Built into that is an increase in core current expenditure of close to 4.75%. As such, there can be a legitimate expectation that there will be increases in expenditure generally, but it has to fall to the Government, budget to budget, to set its priorities and monitor progress on the implementation of the programme for Government. A degree of flexibility is needed because some Departments and projects may be ahead of schedule, while others may get stuck in the system. One needs an ability to make budget day decisions. I am not completely averse to multi-annual and there are certain specific areas where it would be helpful. Several Ministers have raised that directly with me and we are examining it.