Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The capital plan, when published in 2015, set out an Exchequer envelope of €27 billion for the period 2016 to 2021. The Government strongly recognised the need for increased investment in Ireland's public infrastructure and used economic growth at that point to increase capital expenditure. The provisional outturn of gross voted capital expenditure in 2016 was €4.1 billion. This was noted in the recently published end of quarter 1 of 2017 Exchequer returns. The report noted that expenditure pressures may arise in the transport area following the flooding at the start of 2016 which in turn was recognised in the outturns for capital expenditure in 2016.

As Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, I am responsible for monitoring the deployment of Exchequer capital expenditure. Funding is made available to individual Departments. Each Department must ensure that individual projects and investment proposals are subject to all relevant appraisal processes. I make every effort to ensure capital funding made available to Departments is spent in the year in which it is made available. When a carryover is possible, it is facilitated, as we did this year for all Departments. However, with the social pressure we have to deal with, some of which can be attributed to the need to increase capital investment, funding is made available in a particular year at a particular point to deliver projects. It should be spent in the way it is committed.

Public housing investment for the first few months of this year is many multiples of where we were last year. That is what I expect to see happen and I expect it to continue throughout this year.

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