Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 3 July 2019
Committee on Budgetary Oversight
Summer Economic Statement: Minister for Finance
Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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This is deeply frustrating. I have asked a very simple question. I have closed the booklet I was referring to now in frustration. What is the additional allocation that the Minister has factored in as part of table No. 4 on page 25 of expenditure developments? It is given as -0.1% of GDP. I ask this question because that component is made up of two things. One is the overrun in the national broadband plan and the second is expenditure. What I really want to get to is whether the Minister is actually listening to the IFAC. The Minister can state that there has been increased expenditure but that is because the costs of the national broadband project have been allowed to run away. The IFAC, on the other hand, is stating that expenditure on a number of headline items is not credible. For example, we are already seeing an overrun in health, which will materialise at the end of the year-----