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

As the Deputy is aware, my Department is responsible for allocating public funds across each area of Government spending and ensuring that expenditure is managed in line with these allocations by Departments. The National Development Plan 2021-2030, published last year, demonstrates the Government’s commitment to meeting Ireland’s infrastructure and investment needs over the medium-term horizon. The NDP provides €165 billion in public capital funding alongside a detailed and positive vision for Ireland up to 2030 as part of Project Ireland 2040.

In budget 2023, I announced an additional €800 million for capital infrastructure projects and programmes next year, which will be made available under the NDP for core capital spending to help in delivering the largest, greenest and most ambitious infrastructure plan in the history of the State. This represents a very substantial commitment of resources.

The Fiscal Monitor for October this year, published on 2 November, recorded gross capital expenditure of almost €5.5 billion to the end of October. The expenditure figure of €5.5 billion does not include capital carryover from 2021 spent in 2022. The amount of capital carryover spent to the end of October amounted to almost €750 million, giving an overall capital spend of just over €6.2 billion for this period. In year-on-year terms, gross capital expenditure is over €400 million higher, excluding capital carryover.

Capital expenditure by its nature tends to be lumpy, with a particularly high drawdown at year-end. It is, therefore, not unusual for Departments to record an underspend or overspend against profile throughout the year. There can be any number of reasons for projects to diverge from the profiles submitted at the beginning of the year, such as delays in planning, delays caused by the rising level of costs, supply chain disruptions, fuel costs and skilled labour shortages.

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