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

It is difficult to estimate it. We started with an unallocated contingency of just under €4 billion. There has been a significant drawdown and allocation of that in recent months. We had a difficult start to the year with Covid and the Omicron variant and now there is a resurgence of Covid. Much depends on the direction that will take in the months ahead in terms of healthcare and the implementation of further rounds of vaccination and so on. There will be definitely be significant additional demand in health for Covid-related spend in the current year.

We also incurred a lot of additional expenditure earlier in the year with social protection because of the extension of different measures there, and we had to fund a range of cost-of-living measures, of which at least €500 million would have been on the direct expenditure side.

On the cost of looking after the Ukrainian refugees, we are in ongoing contact, as one would expect, with the line Departments that carry these costs, especially the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and the Department of Social Protection. We have an estimate, which is a range, that the costs could be between €900 million and €1.2 billion this year. We expect the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration will give an updated forecast shortly to us and the Government on the anticipated accommodation costs that will need to be met across this year. Of course, it depends on the continuing flow of people. We all recognise the acute pressures it places on the accommodation system at this time. We also had a Supplementary Estimate on the acquisition by the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, and his Department of temporary electricity generation capacity, which must be funded.

At this point, our assessment is that in excess of €500 million of that €3.9 billion may well be unallocated or uncommitted. That could change as the year goes on, particularly in the context of Covid.