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

Information on expenditure is published each month in the Fiscal Monitor, with the provisional end-December 2021 gross capital expenditure position recorded as €9.9 billion. A breakdown of both current and capital expenditure for each Department is set out on pages 19 and 20 of the Fiscal Monitor, published on 5 January this year.

The provisional data in the Fiscal Monitor indicate an increase in gross capital expenditure of just under €300 million or 3% above the expenditure level recorded in 2020. However, when account is taken of capital carryover from 2020 spent in 2021, the increase in capital spending compared to the prior year is over €600 million or 7%. This year-on-year increase was recorded in spite of the closure of non-essential construction activity between January and April last year.

The €9.9 billion figure includes a capital drawdown of approximately €820 million, which will be carried forward into this year. The gross capital expenditure of €9.9 billion when compared with the full allocation of €10.5 billion, including supplementary estimates, shows a provisional underspend of €580 million for 2021. In order to meet additional current expenditure costs, €360 million of this underspend was vired or transferred from capital to current expenditure by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. Adjusting for this virement, the underspend will be in the region of €220 million or approximately 2% of the 2021 allocation.

The review of the national development plan, NDP, was published last October and it sets out an Exchequer investment in capital allocations of €136 billion over the plan period out to 2030. The NDP also set out departmental allocations out to 2025, which will see them increasing to €13.6 billion or 5.1% of GNI*.

The Revised Estimates volume for this year has set out an overall capital allocation of €11.1 billion. When account is taken of the capital carryover from last year, this will leave almost €12 billion available to Departments for capital investment this year. That is a record budget of €12 billion in 2022 for capital investment.

See this speech in context