Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am pleased to introduce the Appropriation Bill 2014. This Bill serves two primary purposes. In the first place, the Appropriation Bill is necessary to authorise in law all of the expenditure that has been undertaken in 2014 on the basis of the Estimates that have already been voted on by the Dáil during the year.

The amounts included in section 1 and Schedule 1 to the Bill, to be appropriated for supply services, all relate to amounts included in the Estimates, set out in the Revised Estimates Volume 2014, voted upon by the Dáil in January 2014, as well as the Supplementary Estimates which have also been voted on in 2014.

Second, and of vital importance, the passage of the Appropriation Bill is also essential to provide a legal basis for all existing voted expenditure to continue into 2015. This allows payments including social welfare payments, salaries and pensions, and payments to suppliers for goods and services, to continue pending a vote by the Dáil on the 2015 Estimates.

In respect of capital carryover, under the rolling five year multi-annual capital envelopes introduced in previous budgets, Departments may carry over from the current year to the following year unspent capital up to a maximum of 10% of voted capital. Section 91 of the Finance Act 2004 made legal provision for this capital carryover by way of deferred surrender. Under this enabling legislation the normal requirement under the Exchequer and Audit Departments Act 1866 to surrender unspent moneys in a financial year to the Central Fund may be deferred in the case of capital moneys subject to a number of conditions. Among those conditions is that the unspent capital sums must be set out in the Appropriation Act by reference to the Votes concerned. The Appropriation Act determines definitively the capital amounts which may be carried over to the following year.

The capital carryover facility forms an integral part of the rolling multi-annual capital envelopes. The multi-annual system is designed to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the management by Departments and agencies of capital programmes and projects. It recognises the difficulties inherent in the planning and profiling of capital expenditure and acknowledges that for a myriad of reasons, capital projects may be subject to delays. The carryover facility allows for a portion of unspent moneys which would have been lost to the capital programmes and projects concerned, under the annual system of allocating capital, to be made available for spending on programme priorities in the subsequent year.

The amounts of capital carryover by Vote are set out in Schedule 2 to the Bill. It is proposed to carry over just over €79 million from a total capital programme of over €3.5 billion. This amount of €79 million is split across seven different Votes with the largest amounts arising on the Votes of the Departments of Transport, Tourism and Sport, Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, and Agriculture, Food and the Marine.

The liabilities in respect of the first payroll payments to staff and pensioners mature on 1 January and 2 January 2015 and form part of the supply services for 2015. However, as funding needs to be in place to ensure staff and pensioners have access to funds on these dates, Government Departments and offices will need to pre-fund their commercial bank accounts. Section 3 of the Appropriation Bill 2014 puts in place a mechanism to provide for advances from the Central Fund to the Paymaster General's supply account in December 2014. These advances are to be repaid to the Central Fund in January 2015.

The provision in the Appropriation Bill provides a clear legal authority for Government Departments and offices to have a credit issued in respect of the Central Fund, that facilitates the accounting treatment of salaries and pensions payable on 1 and 2 January 2015, as expenditure that comes under moneys voted by the Dáil in 2015, where the usual processes and mechanisms for voted moneys in 2015 will apply.

Section 15(1) of the Health Service Executive (Financial Matters) Act 2014 provides that from 1 January 2015, the Health Service Executive Vote shall cease to exist and the salaries and expenses and certain other services administered by the Health Service Executive, including miscellaneous grants, shall form part of the Vote of the Office of the Minister for Health.

Section 3 of the Appropriation Act 1999, as amended by section 4 of the Appropriation Act 2005, provides that funds in relation to certain excise duties on tobacco products be transferred by the Revenue Commissioners as appropriations-in-aid to the Health Service Executive. The amount involved is approximately €167 million. Incorporating the HSE Vote into the Vote of the Office of the Minister for Health requires that these receipts related to excise duties on tobacco products, be appropriated to the Vote of the Minister for Health with effect from 1 January 2015. This change requires a revision to section 3 of the Appropriation Act 1999 as set out in section 4 of the Appropriation Bill 2014.

The signed Act is required by the Comptroller and Auditor General for clearance of the end-year issues from the Exchequer.

Under Article 25.2.1° of the Constitution the President may not sign a Bill earlier than the fifth day after the date on which the Bill is presented to him. However, there is provision in Article 25.2.2° whereby, at the request of the Government with the prior concurrence of Seanad Éireann, the President may sign a Bill on an earlier date than the fifth day mentioned.

In view of the urgency of this Bill, the provision in Article 25.2.2° is sought, and a motion to this effect is placed before the Seanad. Such an earlier signature motion has also been sought in relation to the Appropriation Bill in previous years. Crucially, the passage of the Appropriation Bill and its signing into law will allow the payments required to deliver our public services to continue in 2015, allow for our public servants and many social welfare recipients to be paid on time in January 2015 and in the period before the Dáil approves the 2015 Estimates.