Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

If I understand correctly, between deferred capital at the end of the year, when the Minister allocated the money in 2021 for 2022 and 2023, he knew about the carryovers in each case. He is telling me, in fact, if I understand correctly, that the total is approximately €1.2 billion between carryovers and underspend at the Department.

I keep thinking of all the services urgently needed in this country that have not happened. This is my question. From the global perspective of the Minister's Department, what is he going to do to make sure this does not happen repeatedly? It seems crazy to allocate money and not spend it. That suggests three possibilities. The first is to allow more projects into the pipeline because they take longer now than they used to, the second is to examine the public procurement process and the third is to examine the public spending guidelines to see if the Minister could apply the same due diligence with less time, fewer steps and more parallel steps.

See this speech in context