Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Again, I am not looking to have an argument, but a few of the things the Minister said are not accurate. I will set out the position. My understanding of the budgetary process is that there are essentially estimated Estimates in the abridged Estimates file. It exists. It is a table and it is not only at programme level. It is at sub-programme level. Every line item is itemised. When the budget is announced on budget day, it is the estimated funding underpinning all those announcements. Further work is done by the Departments between then and December when that is all finalised. Typically in previous years, there would be some changes but they would not be significant. How do we know? It is because in every previous year before the REV is concluded, the Secretary General under the Minister's predecessor provided us with the abridged Estimates volume, AEV, with sub-programme level. The document I got from the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform states that I have the AEV for Vote 34. It has all the subhead levels. The only reason I am saying this is that it was never an issue before. Every previous year, I wrote to the Secretary General who provided the information and it worked, including in the first year or so when the current Minister was in office.

So that we are all clear, in advance of the budget, there is a full abridged Estimates volume with a full list of heads and subheads. We all know it is a draft and that it gets revised, but that document exists. I am asking the Minister for a commitment that, as in previous years, after the budget is announced, when members of this committee request it, the Minister will just give it to us. I should not have had to pester his hardworking departmental officials, the freedom of information, FOI, office and the Ceann Comhairle to eventually get a document I knew existed, but which the Minister told the Ceann Comhairle in correspondence did not exist. Yet, here we have it. I am just asking the Minister, because it would mean we would not have to have these wasteful exchanges. The Ceann Comhairle is waiting for the Minister to reply to him to set out how it is that the Minister told him the document did not exist. The FOI officer then said a new record that was created to be helpful was being provided and then we got the record we asked for in the first place.

Could someone give me information about the capital underspend of €1.41 million? I presume it is in the Estimates document. It is normally detailed in that.