Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I would have hoped the forecast would have lasted longer than six months. Anyhow it is an update. I have checked some recent figures also based on the 2013 Estimates. I refer to the document, Estimates of Receipt and Expenditure for the year ending 31 December 2013, which costs €1 for those who want to pay for it.

I also referenced my figures to this document and there is a slight variation but not too much. I want the public at large to take account the issue of voted versus non-voted expenditure. The House must debate this issue. I have rounded the following figures from the Medium-Term Fiscal Statement so I do not lose people in the decimal points. In 2012 the voted current expenditure was €52 billion and capital expenditure was €4 billion, giving a total voted expenditure of €56 billion. For 2015 the figure for current expenditure is €48 billion and that for capital expenditure is €3 billion, giving a total of €51 billion, which is a reduction of 9% from the 2012 figure. This is the target with regard to voted expenditure for line Departments.

Non-voted expenditure is not voted through the House, and I believe it should be as part of the budgetary process. In 2012 the total for non-voted current expenditure was €8 billion and the total for non-voted capital expenditure was €3 billion, giving a total of €11 billion. By the end of 2015 non-voted current expenditure is forecast to increase to €11 billion and non-voted capital expenditure is forecast to increase to €4 billion, so between 2012 and 2015 non-voted expenditure is forecast to increase from €11 billion to €15 billion. This is an increase of 36% and there is no mechanism in the Parliament to discuss it. We can have all the discussions we like in the Estimates and budgetary process about the voted expenditure, which will be reduced by 9%, but we have no mechanism to discuss the non-voted expenditure, which is to increase by 36%, according to the figures in the document.

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