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

It was new money but less money is being spent on capital expenditure purposes compared to the previous year. In the way these things come out, however, one often thinks otherwise. The Minister may make a big cut in capital expenditure of €600 million or €700 million and then he announces an extra €100 million in March and another €100 million in July. People then say that he is great to spend an additional €200 million but he is actually spending €500 million less than last year. The amendment seeks to provide an overall framework for that in the interests of transparency if there is a stimulus package or infrastructural programme that involves current or capital expenditure.

We did not get a full reply to the current versus capital expenditure issue, so perhaps the Minister can spell out the differences between those two areas. He might give some thought to how best that could be done because people are confused. I still do not know about the retrofit scheme in local authorities, including how different finance officers will record it in their local authority accounts, or will they all do the same thing? It would be useful if we knew whether these retrofit schemes will be considered as maintenance or refurbishment. I am not quite sure.

As regards that issue, stimulus packages should be done by way of regulation. Sometimes we get the public relations announcement but it could be three years later before anything happens. Some of the projects that were intended to be covered by the stimulus package might never happen. The amendment might be one way of ensuring that whatever is announced has a legal standing. It might force some of them to happen sooner rather than falling by the wayside.

See this speech in context