Results 5,921-5,940 of 27,945 for speaker:Michael McGrath
- Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Summer Economic Statement: Minister for Finance and Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (15 Jul 2021)
Michael McGrath: The breakdown of that will be made available when we publish the NDP. If the Deputy looks at total capital for 2021, to take him through it, it was almost €9.8 billion in core terms. There is approximately €300 million of Covid-related capital in the current year as well, but we are essentially increasing the underlying core capital provision from €9.8 billion to...
- Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Summer Economic Statement: Minister for Finance and Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (15 Jul 2021)
Michael McGrath: Can I clarify, when Deputy Durkan speaks about intervening to ensure the plan stays on track, is he talking about the capital plan?
- Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Summer Economic Statement: Minister for Finance and Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (15 Jul 2021)
Michael McGrath: That is the process we are now involved in. The review of the national development is at an advanced stage. We have held an extensive public consultation exercise at this point with well in excess of 500 submissions from the public. We have published phase 1 of the review of the NDP. That has involved an extensive amount of documentation and it provides the evidential basis for making the...
- Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Summer Economic Statement: Minister for Finance and Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (15 Jul 2021)
Michael McGrath: I thank the Deputy for the question and I am happy to take it. He rightly pointed to the scale of the issue, and the Government is acutely conscious of it. That is why we have set housing as a key priority. Consider the level of resources allocated in this regard in budget 2021, when we increased the capital envelope in the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage alone by...
- Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Summer Economic Statement: Minister for Finance and Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (15 Jul 2021)
Michael McGrath: I thank the Deputy for those questions. Looking ahead to Covid-related expenditure in 2022, we made provision in the stability programme update which we published in April for expenditure of €4 billion. Some €2.5 billion is for different Departments since there will be continued costs in health, for example, for the vaccination programme, continued costs in education for the...
- Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Summer Economic Statement: Minister for Finance and Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (15 Jul 2021)
Michael McGrath: I thank the Deputy for his question. He has rightly highlighted what will be one of the main legacies of the Covid crisis, that is, a significantly elevated level of public debt from a pre-Covid level of around €200 billion, rising to around €280 billion by 2025. I would make the point that despite that significant increase in public debt, the cost of servicing that debt has...
- Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Summer Economic Statement: Minister for Finance and Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (15 Jul 2021)
Michael McGrath: I thank the Deputy for raising what is such an important issue. I know the Minister for Health, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, and the HSE are determined to reinstate all of the non-Covid healthcare in as full a form as possible as quickly as they possibly can. A significant amount of progress has been made in that regard. On the overall budget position for the Department of Health and the...
- Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Summer Economic Statement: Minister for Finance and Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (15 Jul 2021)
Michael McGrath: I will be very brief. We acknowledge the huge strain which so many businesses have been under in the last 16 months, notwithstanding the massive support that the State has extended, and continues to extend, to them. It is because of that support that we have greatly mitigated the economic fallout and greatly reduced the number of businesses that might not survive. The decisions the...
- Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Summer Economic Statement: Minister for Finance and Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (15 Jul 2021)
Michael McGrath: I thank the Deputy for her question. To be fair, she should reserve judgment until she sees the housing strategy, Housing for All. There is an increase in the SES in the underlying core capital from 2021 to 2022 of €1.1 billion. In addition, the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O’Brien, is looking at all other possible sources of funding and...
- Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Summer Economic Statement: Minister for Finance and Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (15 Jul 2021)
Michael McGrath: I will not be able to cover all that or anything like it in a minute, but I will make a couple of brief points. I have heard what the Deputy said about the public spending code. It is there to protect the interests of taxpayers. It kept under review. Significant changes were made in 2019. It is important that we have safeguards in place because in general, the better the homework is done...