Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 12 July 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach

Changes to Public Spending Code: Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform

Mr. John Conlon:

The public spending code stays in existence, updated by Circular 06/23. We envisage the infrastructure guidelines will effectively be a replacement for the public spending code. They will encompass much of what is in the public spending code so this will not be a new framework. It will include many of the principles and objectives in the code that we have discussed. It will be a good bit shorter because we found the public spending code had become a long document and we wanted to make it more streamlined. We will put much of the guidance and many of the good practice notes up on our website. It will be a far tighter document but much of what was in the original public spending code will remain as guidance in the notes which we will continue to update on our website.