Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

No, this is not unique to the Department of Health. An assigned individual or group of civil servants from the expenditure division of the old Department of Finance used to monitor the Vote of each line Department. That has always been the way it has been done. Every year Departments and offices set out their expected profile of expenditure on a month by month basis. During the course of the year each Department and office reports monthly to my Department on the actual performance against the expenditure profile set out. I bring these to the Government which now looks at departmental expenditure on a monthly basis. It does not take a huge amount of time for us to do this. The bigger spending Departments such as the Department of Health take up more time than smaller spending Departments in terms of the focus of my Department. Although a Supplementary Estimate of just under €200 million was needed by the Department of Health, I am gratified that the out-turn figures for last year's general overall performance of all Departments show that we spent less than we had profiled. This singular achievement reflects well on line Departments and the monitoring of expenditure generally.

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