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

I propose to take Questions Nos. 48 and 77 together.

On 12 February, I published how the €99 million necessary this year for the timely provision of the National Children’s Hospital will be accommodated with a minimum of disruption to the scheduled roll-out of key infrastructure projects under Project Ireland 2040. I also detailed reforms designed to ensure better project management across the whole of government.

In health, the scheduled draw-down of €24 million across both 2019 and 2020 will be amended to facilitate delivering the overall investment programme as set out in Project Ireland 2040. Even with this change, this will still leave a year-on-year increase of 25% in capital investment in the health sector in 2019.

The remaining €75 million will be met by re-scheduling decisions around the A5 motorway, which is a project to which the Government remains completely committed; the re-scheduling of payments in relation to the National Forensic Science Laboratory; advance payment of a sum from the Department of Education and Skills in respect of higher education facilities at the National Children’s Hospital; an updating of the scheduled draw-down of €16 million from the two Project Ireland 2040 funds; re-profiling of payments under certain programmes of investment in the Department of Communications, Climate Action and the Environment; and €3 million from the re-profiling of investment under the flood risk management programme of the Office of Public Works, on which my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Canney, has just answered questions - I apologise, I meant to say the Minister of State, Deputy Moran. The spirit of candidness has dissipated and I will be in trouble for the rest of this session.

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