Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Cowen for sharing his time with me.

I question the €10 million prepayment related to the Department of Education and Skills which the Minister has said is not part of the Further Revised Estimates. My understanding of the Estimates process is that the Dáil is required to consider the Estimates for each financial year. We have not considered the Estimate from the Department of Education and Skills for the national children's hospital. How is it possible for a Department, without having the Estimate considered by the Dáil, to prepay for something that will be a liability at some point in the future? Will the Minister explain that liability? It was not explained to me in the reply to a parliamentary question I tabled on the issue. What is the liability? What is the contract the Department has entered into that requires the payment of €10 million now? What authority has the Department to prepay taxpayers' money for something it has not received? I have never heard of a Department prepaying for services or capital projects. Should we not have a separate Estimate to consider the issue?

More importantly, because one can always get around the technical details in some way, what are the €10 million worth of education projects that are not going ahead because of the prepayment to the Department of Health? That is a key issue. I believe they are in the third level sector. The Minister will say the money is within the third level sector and can be moved to deal with another issue at third level, but this is being moved to pay for something in the future at third level. God only knows when the children's hospital will be built, given the way the Government is behaving. We must know what projects are losing out because of this and whether the Minister has the authority to move the money which was considered by the Dáil for expenditure this year to meet expenditure next year. Therefore, Members of the Dáil and taxpayers are entitled to assume that the €10 million is being used for projects this year.

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