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

The reason I raise this is that last year, the Minister underspent his capital budget by €145 million, even though I am sure the talk this time last year was that he expected to spend it all. The Department of Finance and NAMA project that €1 billion of capital expenditure equates to anywhere between 10,000 and 17,000 jobs in the economy, so the Minister's underspend last year alone cost up to 2,000 jobs. So far this year, the Minister has underspent by 17% or €305 million. Some of that will be spent by the end of the year but it raises the question that if the Minister knows most of the spending will occur in the last three months of the year, why does he not adjust the profile to reflect what he knows to be the reality? I am concerned that Departments, especially the Minister's Department, cannot get that right.

The Minister mentioned the roll-over of unused capital expenditure. Much of that was in water services departments. The biggest element ties in with the earlier comment on water services and the possibility of local authorities holding back on using some of their own funds to co-fund major projects. That will leave a deficit in water services which Irish Water will not want to know about.

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