Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy makes a number of valid points. For the record of the House, the actual overall underspend last year was more than €900 million. There is a restriction on the amount that can be carried forward, which is 10% of the capital allocation within the relevant Vote. This meant the amount carried forward into 2021 was more than €700 million.

The Deputy is correct that Departments will guard their capital allocations very closely. In recent months, we have put in place new requirements for reporting directly to Cabinet by the main spending Departments, a number of them on the current expenditure side and, in the case of the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and the Department of Transport, in respect of capital expenditure. I am a firm believer in getting small works done where that is possible, and many of them can be done in a relatively short period. We will keep a very close eye on this issue. If decisions have to be made on reallocating from one subhead to another within a Department, I am very much open to that. Any such request needs to come from the line Department.

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