Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I accept the importance of the Deputy's point, and only earlier in the week, I presented a memorandum to the Government updating it on the delivery of the national development plan. It showed that cost-price inflation over the past two years has been very considerable. While the rate of increase has slowed in recent months, it is just a slower rate of increase as opposed to a decrease or a reversal.

As for how we are aiming to deal with the issue the Deputy identified, first, we have made changes to our processes to give Departments a higher degree of autonomy to make their own decisions on projects below a certain value. Many of the changes we have made to the public spending code, now described as infrastructure guidelines, took effect on 1 January of this year. The feedback I am getting from Departments is that it is playing a positive role in dealing with the issue the Deputy accurately described.

The second action relates to the allocation of a further €2.25 billion between this year and the next two years.

Much of that funding will be used to try to guard against a risk in the case of projects we all want to go ahead with. The funding will be in place in Departments to still allow those projects to go ahead even when the final cost comes in at a higher level, due to no fault of anyone. It could be due to the big forces that are happening with inflation at the moment. Those are the two ways in which we are looking to deal with it. My sense, from dealing with the Office of Government Procurement and from dealing with the Departments that have larger capital spending programmes, is that in many cases, we have been successful in managing those risks but not in all. I certainly am alive to the issue to which the Deputy has referred.