Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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This is the third year in a row in which I am presenting the Bill and I am pleased to do so in Seanad Éireann today. The Bill is a key component of the annual budgetary process that must be concluded by both Houses of the Oireachtas before the end of the year. While it is a technical item of legislation, it is one of fundamental importance.

It serves two key purposes. First, it is necessary to provide a lawful basis for the expenditure incurred this year. It is based on the total Estimates voted on by the Dáil. This comprises the sums included in the Revised Estimates for 2022, voted by the Dáil earlier this year, and all Supplementary Estimates voted by the Dáil during 2022. These sums to be appropriated for supply services are set out in section 1 and Schedule 1. For 2022, these Estimates amount in aggregate to almost €75.1 billion, representing a significant investment to support the delivery of essential public services and allowing us to progress longer term priorities and invest in high-quality front-line services for a growing population. Funding allocations in 2022 have provided for record investment under our national development plan, NDP, to deliver infrastructure projects to support economic, social, environmental and cultural development.

The 2022 Estimates also reflect the significant expenditure to respond to external challenges facing our economy and society. Measures to support households and business with the challenges of rising prices were introduced during the year to reduce the burden, especially for the most vulnerable. Funding has also been provided for accommodation, welfare and education supports for those arriving in Ireland from Ukraine. Our continued responses to the Covid-19 pandemic and Brexit are also reflected in the supply sums in the Bill.

The second critical purpose of the Bill is to provide a legal basis for public spending to continue into 2023. If the Bill were not enacted before the end of this month, there would be no authority to spend any voted moneys from the start of January 2023 until approval of the 2023 Estimates by the Dáil. This authority is contained in the Central Fund (Permanent Provisions) Act 1965 and is based on the sums provided for in the Bill. They include continued spending in areas such as social welfare payments from the social protection Vote, Exchequer pay for our key public services and the running costs of our schools and hospitals.

The Bill also provides for the capital carryover from 2022 into 2023. Under the rolling multi-annual capital envelopes introduced in budget 2004, Departments may carry over unspent capital funding from the current year to the following year, subject to a maximum of 10% of voted capital expenditure in the current year. This multi-annual system is designed to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the management by Departments and agencies of capital programmes and projects. The carryover facility recognises the difficulties inherent in the planning and profiling of capital expenditure and allows for a portion of unspent moneys that 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 proposed capital carryover into 2023, set out in section 2, is almost €690 million. This represents 6% of the total Exchequer capital programme of more than €11.5 billion for 2022. The proposed sums to be carried over by Vote are set out in Schedule 2. A table listing the sums to be deferred by subhead for each Vote availing of the capital carryover facility is also included in the 2023 Revised Estimates Volume published this week.

The Bill includes a provision to advance funds from the Central Fund to the Paymaster General's supply account to facilitate payments due in the initial days of January 2023. This provision will ensure the necessary funds are in place for salary, pension and social welfare payments at the start of 2023. Section 3 will provide for up to €355 million to be advanced for this purpose. The need for this provision arises as certain Exchequer liabilities and social welfare payments are due for payment by electronic funds transfer in the first week of January 2023. With the banking system closed on 2 January, funding will need to be in place in departmental bank accounts before the end of this year to meet these liabilities in a timely fashion. In addition, An Post requires prefunding before the end of 2022 to distribute funds to its network of post offices for processing social welfare payments.

In light of the urgency and importance of the Bill, an early signature request is sought. The signed Act is required by the Comptroller and Auditor General to enable end-year funding to issue from the Exchequer. Under Article 25.2.1° of the Constitution, the President may not sign a Bill earlier than on the fifth day after it has been presented to him or her. However, there is provision in Article 25.2.2° whereby, at the request of the Government and with the prior concurrence of Seanad Éireann, the President may sign a Bill on an earlier date than the fifth day mentioned.Approval to utilise the provision in Article 25.2.2 is now sought and a motion to this effect has been placed before the Seanad. An early signature motion has also been sought for the Appropriation Bill in previous years.

The Appropriation Bill is an essential element of housekeeping that must be undertaken each year. As I outlined, the passing of the Bill will authorise in law all of the expenditure undertaken in 2022 based on the Estimates voted on by the Dáil during the year. It is of fundamental importance to those who depend on our essential public services. The passage of the Bill will also ensure payments can continue in 2023 in the period before the Dáil approves the 2023 Estimates. I commend this Bill to the House.

Seán Kyne (Fine Gael)
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The Minister of State is welcome to the House. This is probably one of the most important yet technical pieces of legislation that is generally rubber-stamped but is hugely important nonetheless. All facets and aspects of the State are covered under the 45 headings or Votes as laid out, ending with one of the newer Departments, namely, the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science. The Minister, Deputy Harris, is doing a great job in ensuring that Department is delivering for the third level sector. We could go through each and every one of them and talk about the individual Votes. Obviously, I will not do that. The purpose of this Bill is to ensure the State and its agencies are run effectively from 1 January 2023.

I wish to talk about the actual process of drawing down capital expenditure to get approval for projects. I understand the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is carrying out a review of the public spending code as it relates to certain projects. I raised this issue with the Secretary General of the Department of Health at a recent meeting of the Joint Committee on Health.

I understand why the three-stage process, with different gates, was put in place. Obviously, the three-stage process for large projects to get Cabinet approval is necessary in terms of proper scrutiny of expenditure. Nonetheless, it is an onerous process that creates delays on certain projects. We see projects effectively stalled. A major project now takes months from when we decide to proceed with it to the start of its actual delivery. It can take five, seven, eight or ten years to get that project over the line in terms of cutting a ribbon and doing all that. People get cynical about this. They hear about these projects so often but the process is so elongated and delayed. There are probably reasons for that.

As well as monitoring public spending and assuring there is efficient use of public funds, I am sure this process is also a mechanism to delay projects to ensure all projects in a Department do not come together. I can understand that too. There is a need to streamline the processes, however. Some projects are absolutely vital, irrespective of the planning. There will be debates in the new year on the streamlining of planning. That can take on a life of its own. The public procurement side of things is hugely onerous. I put this to the Secretary General of the Department of Health at the health committee. If the Government and the Cabinet decide there is a project that is absolutely vital for the functioning of the State, how quickly can it be brought through the public spending code? That is the test. There are projects that need to be fast-tracked. They have been discussed. If they have to go through the different gates and approval stages, the process can be drawn out, possibly for years even before we go through planning, approvals and contracts and all that goes with that. That is all I want to say about capital expenditure.

I support the Bill. It is interesting reading for people to go through the expenditure on all the different areas that cover all functions of the State and delivery to the public by the State in terms of services, projects and grants, etc. As I said, it is a very important Bill, albeit a technical one that generally does not get much scrutiny.

Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein)
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The Minister of State is very welcome. As we know, this Bill needs to be passed every year to allow the Department to spend the allocated moneys. It is a bit of housekeeping that has to be done. Of course, Sinn Féin will support the passing of the Bill. This debate gives me an opportunity to raise some local issues regarding capital spending or more frankly, the lack of capital spending.

I will deal briefly with three topics, the first of which is housing. The Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, said last year that the Government is spending half of what it actually needs to spend on housing. I will localise the issue for the Minister of State. I live in Castleconnell, which is a beautiful village of 2,500 people. Right now, we have 443 families and individuals looking for a house in Castleconnell, and it is planned to build five public houses. The official plan for the village tells us we need 130, which is probably an underestimate. Five houses is the reality. I say this to highlight how badly people on my side of Limerick have been let down in terms of adequate capital spend. It is easy to talk about this in terms of figures but when I talk about housing in Castleconnell, I think about a young mother with two young children aged three and five who is living in a single room in her parents' house. She has absolutely no prospect of getting a house and is in absolute despair. I know of another young mother whose child is ready to go to school in Castleconnell. Her whole family support network is in Castleconnell but she is living on the other side of the city with no prospect of getting a house. There are no plans right now to build the additional houses we need. I want to highlight that. I could have picked any number of examples but this is the one I know best. It highlights very clearly the level of despair, frankly, in terms of the housing emergency we face. I call on the Government, as I have consistently done, to address this issue in a much more fundamental and ambitious way.

The Minister of State will be very familiar with my second issue regarding transport, which I have raised with him previously. The Government effectively cancelled the plans for the northern distributor road in Limerick even though it is essential infrastructure. The Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, has made it absolutely clear that it has been cancelled. It has been dropped from all of the plans. This road network is essential if we are to open up investment on the north side of our city. It is also essential for people travelling across the city, who face traffic chaos and danger around the Mackey roundabout, in particular. This road has been in train for several years and the Government has cancelled it. In fairness, all politicians across all parties locally condemned the move, with the exception of the Green Party, I hasten to add. They condemned the fact that this plan has been dropped. I cannot begin to tell the Minister of State the impact it is having in terms of the huge level of despair.

Effectively, Limerick has been put on hold in terms of transport issues. I see that my colleague, Senator Buttimer, is in the Chamber. We really cannot see where the Cork-Limerick motorway is at this point. We would like to know whether it is going ahead. I am not convinced that it is. The Minister of State might shed some light on what is happening on that particular capital project. Again, it is essential. When I was at university, which was a long time ago now, we spoke about a western corridor linking Cork, Limerick and Galway and discussed having really good motorway and rail networks across those three cities. Thankfully, Galway and Limerick are well connected now but we desperately need a motorway connection between Limerick and Cork. I cannot see where the plans are.

I call on the Minister of State to talk to his senior Minister and ask him to revisit the northern distributor road, in particular. It is causing fury. Of course, it is particularly impacting some of the most vulnerable working-class communities on the north side of the city. They have been badly let down for generations now. We need to get that northern distributor road built. The whole city needs it so that we can have a much more effective transport network, which would obviously utilise the public transport we all want to see. The Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, does not seem to recognise that right now, public transport across Limerick is just not adequate. We do not have enough buses. We do not have the rail network developed. Yes, there are plans and there is much talk about it, which we welcome, but we are years away from it actually happening. I want to highlight that issue.

My third point is on the issue of health. When I met the management of University Hospital Limerick, UHL, earlier this year, in fairness its representatives conceded that the hospital is 200 beds short. This has been an ongoing issue for as long as Fine Gael has been in government, for the seven years Fianna Fáil has been effectively supporting the Government and, indeed, for the two and a half years the Green Party has been in government. Right now, there are plans for 96 bed units, but 48 of those beds will be replacing old beds that are coming out of the system. That will not be ready this winter. It probably will not be ready next winter. When it is completed, we will still be 150 beds short. What does that mean? It means we have 1,500 people on average every month on trolleys in our hospital. The latest HIQA report shows devastating results in terms of the fact that our hospital is not safe for patients.It is easy to talk about the figures, but we should talk to the families about the despair they experience about having to wait, in some cases, for days on a trolley. Elderly patients in their 70s or 80s are spending days on trolleys as a result of inadequate planned capital expenditure over a long period of time. The impact has been that people across Limerick are frankly afraid to go to their local hospital. The HIQA report, which I think only came out yesterday, is probably the most damning report yet in relation to the ongoing failures of this Government. We need to see much more urgency in capital investments in our hospitals. We need to see a real belief in achieving the goals that were set out in Sláintecare all those years ago. We are still so far away from that.

Those are the capital issues that I wanted to raise briefly in the time I have. We will of course be supporting this Bill because it is a necessary piece of housekeeping, but I could not let the opportunity pass to highlight the desperate and urgent need for additional investment, at pace, in housing, health and transport across Limerick.

Aidan Davitt (Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the Minister of State to the House. As he can anticipate, I will be fully backing this Bill.

It would be remiss of me this morning not to mention the member of Óglaigh na hÉireann who was killed in Lebanon last night. I know this is not the appropriate juncture, but I could not get to my feet as a Government Senator without mentioning the very tragic incident that happened in Lebanon. My thoughts and those of the Government are with his family this morning. Anything that can be done on behalf of the State will be done. There are other families that are in our thoughts as well. Another soldier is critically ill and another couple of soldiers are in hospital. I extend our sympathies and thoughts from this House to the families of the fallen soldier and the other soldiers who were involved in that tragic incident and attack.

Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael)
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I join Senator Davitt in offering our deepest sympathies to the family of the soldier who was killed in Lebanon last night. I offer support to the members of the Defence Forces. Ar dheis lámh Dé go raibh a anam dílis.

This is a very technical Bill at one level. It is routine, as the Minister of State has said. However, Senator Gavan is right-----

Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein)
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It must be Christmas.

Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael)
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It is a rare moment.

Aidan Davitt (Fianna Fail)
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He has the tar tractor outside.

Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael)
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I will pick up on the Senator Gavan made about the M20 motorway. It is important in the overarching transport infrastructure budget to recognise that the second and third cities of our country are not connected by motorway. That makes no sense from an economic and social point of view. Last Sunday, as people returned to Cork from the Munster match in Limerick following a disappointing result, they were frustrated to find that the traffic in Charleville and Buttevant was back to the old days. Those of us who represent Government parties, and especially those of us on the transport committee, have been very vocal in our support of BusConnects and the modal shift from the car to the train or bus. We have supported the initiatives of the Government - particularly the Minister for Transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan, and the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton - around the light rail plan for Cork and the BusConnects strategy. To be fair, attitudes are changing around the whole issue of public transport because of the initiatives that the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, has pioneered in government, and that is to be welcomed.

I was not going to speak this morning about the proposed motorway between Cork and Limerick, but I will do so now because Senator Gavan is right when he says it is an imperative that it is built. I know that the Minister for Transport has said that there is not a fatwa against the road. It is important that in the capital expenditure programme, we invest and we commit to investing. This is about the connectivity of two cities, about job creation, about people and about freeing up the lives of people in Buttevant, Charleville and other points in between. There was a documentary on RTÉ recently about the towns that have benefited from the Cork-Dublin motorway because traffic is not going through them anymore. It showed how Fermoy has benefited from the bypass. Equally, I hope Macroom will benefit from the bypass there. Even from a road safety perspective, the Cork-Limerick motorway makes sense. There have been multiple tragic accidents along the existing road. I know it is not in his brief, but I ask the Minister of State to ensure the Government commits to the Cork-Limerick motorway.

The other point I want to make relates to the comments that Senator Gavan made about health. We had a debate yesterday on risk equalisation. In the appropriation of money in the health budget, there needs to be a recognition that our population base is growing. In some places, bed capacity is not keeping in tandem with that growth. The shift to primary care and community care has not developed accordingly. When we discussed the Bill yesterday, I made the point that when we speak to GPs, they say there will be a waiting list. As I said yesterday, the lower age group cohort is coming in and the older cohort is coming in, and there seems to be a logjam in the middle. When many people try to ring their GP, they are told that there is a waiting list of four days, three days or whatever.

I want to make my next point, which relates to local government, very clear. We spoke here a number of years ago about councillors' pay and conditions. I genuinely believe we need to build on what we did in the Citizens’ Assembly on a directly elected mayor for Dublin by continually augmenting and supporting our local government members. We cannot put in place roadblocks to them doing their work, regardless of whether they are urban or rural councillors. They have a variety of different impediments in their way. The vast majority of them are working part time as councillors and full time in their day jobs. As we all know, the reality in the majority of cases is that they have to work full time as a councillor and the day job nearly suffers.

Aidan Davitt (Fianna Fail)
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Absolutely.

Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael)
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The Minister of State has been a member of a local authority. He understands where I am going with this point. We should work collectively to ensure we do not have a brain drain of councillors at the next local elections. We should put scaffolding around them-----

Aidan Davitt (Fianna Fail)
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Hear, hear.

Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein)
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Well said.

Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael)
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-----to support their work. This will benefit their local communities and enhance the delivery of services by councils at local level.

I will conclude by wishing the Minister of State well on Saturday in the Government reshuffle. I have always found him to be an excellent Minister of State, in-----

Aidan Davitt (Fianna Fail)
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And he is hardworking.

Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael)
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-----particular in the whole area of cybersecurity. He has been a breath of fresh air in his information, in his knowledge and in his capacity to deliver and to bring people with him. I wish him well.

Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein)
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Well said.

Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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I thank Senator Buttimer for his kind words on my precarious position. I believe what will happen if a new Taoiseach is appointed, and presumably he or she will be, is that I will cease to be a Minister of State at that point.

I will start by addressing the points made by Senator Kyne. He mentioned the public spending code. There has to be a balance between the number of stages that it takes to get project approval and the amount of time that is required. There are three decision gates. Initially, to carry out a big capital project you need preliminary approval, which is the State saying that, in principle, it would like to do the project. Then you have to design the project and the design has to be signed off on. Eventually, it has to be put out for tender and you do not know how much the project will cost until, quite far down the tracks, the construction company comes back to you and says how much it will build your infrastructure for. At that point, the final amount of money has to be signed off on. Those are the three decision gates. In general, there is a view that although the public spending code was recently reviewed, it needs to be looked at again.Time is not free and saying that there is need to go off and do repeated evaluations, has a cost. Sometimes there is a feeling that every time something is evaluated and subjected to more appraisals, the project risk is reduced. In fact, the time is adding up as well and eventually it comes to the point where nothing at all has been delivered. That is the risk of having a public spending code that takes too long, and this is being reviewed.

Senator Gavan went into particular detail about the capital programme overall and the need for accelerated investment in housing. He referred to his own area of Castleconnell and the specific examples of people requiring housing. While our population is increasing rapidly, we are building, commencing and completing more houses than ever in the past decade. There is a constant need to do more, accelerate and to spend more and approximately €3.5 billion has been spent by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage this year so far; a multiple of what was spent in the past.

The Senator referred to the northern distributor road and his fear that it has been cancelled. I did not know that and honestly, I am not up to speed on roads projects. It is not something I have been focusing on but I am sure the Minister for Transport, Deputy Ryan, or the Minister of State at the Department of Transport with special responsibility for international and road transport and logistics, Deputy Naughton, would be happy to answer questions on specific projects. I get many more representations on roads from Senators and Deputies than on public transport. Our programme for Government commits us to spending €2 on public transport capital investment for every €1 we spend on new roads. We are investing heavily in transport but most of it is going into public transport. According to the capital accounts for the year, €2.547 billion spent on transport projects for this year and there is a carryover of €137 million. Some 95% of the budget was spent but the balance means that most of it is going on public transport rather than on new roads. People benefit from that and they want a regular frequent public transport service to their area. There is heavy investment going into rail both in Limerick and Cork.

Regarding the connections between Limerick and Cork, the road needs to be improved. Safety needs to be improved as well as the speed at which motorists can travel between the two cities. That is absolutely critical. Again, the M20 project is not something I am up to speed on nor would I offer comment on it but I want it to become a safer route to travel, whatever means of transport is used to get between the two cities. The old model was that a motorway was being planned, there were landowners along the way, and people would lobby to have a junction in their area. If people get a junction in their area, the land in the area could become valuable as it could be used for housing and then long-distance commuting communities could be enabled to come in and out of the city. Clearly, that has a very destructive effect on our national planning framework if we are designing our transport strategy to facilitate extended sprawl into areas and creating a situation where people are condemned to long-distance commuting as a way to afford a home.

Senator Davitt mentioned the tragic events in Lebanon, which are shocking to everybody and a reminder that so many Irish people have taken part in peacekeeping missions at great risk to themselves. That a convoy of Irish soldiers was being shot at and one of those soldiers tragically died and others were injured and taken to hospital is shocking. Their families must be terrified, just coming up to Christmas, that this happened to them. This happened while they were working for the common good and to keep the peace while putting themselves at risk. Our overseas forces are heroes and we should think of them at this time.

Senator Buttimer again mentioned the M20, which as I said, I am not up to speed on but I am sure the Department of Transport will be happy to update him on this. He also mentioned the work of councillors. I was a councillor for six years and it is difficult to balance the requirements of having another job, or another source of income, while at the same time serving the public with no staff whatsoever. It is a difficult and thankless job but one that is well respected by the public.

John McGahon (Fine Gael)
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When it is proposed to take Committee Stage?

Aidan Davitt (Fianna Fail)
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Now.