Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 463: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the capital and current underspend in her Department from 1998 to date; if she has proposals to use the underspend to fund vital capital investment in the refurbishment of a school (details supplied) and the development of the long promised sports hall at a college (details supplied); and when these works will commence. [23331/05]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

The details of the annual surrender figures for the years 1997 to 2004 are listed as follows.

Prior to 2004 funds unspent by the Department were surrendered to the Exchequer. From 2004 unspent capital moneys capped at 10% of that year's allocation were permitted to be carried forward to the following year. My Department carried forward €50 million capital moneys from 2004 to 2005 and these funds have now been spent.

The Deputy should note that the proportion of the budget in the Department of Education and Science that was underspent between 1997 and 2004 represented just 1.5% of the Department's cumulative budget of more than €35 billion during that time. Underspending and overspending can occur in parts of any Department's budget for several reasons. In relation to underspending in my Department's budget, looking at even just the past two years illustrates the inaccuracy of some of the remarks made in the media recently about underspending.

In 2003 and 2004, the majority of the underspending returned to the Department of Finance by my Department is accounted for by ESF receipts received late in the year. As the ESF receipts had not been received by late in the year, my Department prudently sought a Supplementary Estimate to cover the possibility that these might not be received before year end to avoid an overspend in the Department's accounts for the year. When the ESF receipts came through before year end in 2003 and 2004, they were then naturally passed on to the Department of Finance.

Some €45 million of the €95 million returned to the Department of Finance in 2004 and €37 million of the €51 million returned in 2003 was thus made up of ESF receipts received late in the year. As the Deputy will be aware, the point of the Supplementary Estimates process is to provide Oireachtas approval for whatever additional funding is required to avoid an excess, such as in a situation where expected ESF receipts might not arrive before year end.

Towards year end the Department, in almost all cases, has fully spent, or will spend, the approved allocations for the year but the combination of uncertainties over some demand-led areas combined with uncertainty over when ESF receipts will arrive require that for prudential reasons a Department must have Oireachtas authority for either eventuality, and thus have a certain level of underspending.

The fact that some expenditure is necessarily demand-led is another factor that should not be overlooked. The eventual cost of demand-led expenditure items such as pensions or the student support schemes, for example, is obviously impossible to estimate with absolute accuracy.

The application for capital funding from the school to which the Deputy refers was assessed against the published prioritisation criteria for large scale building projects which were revised last year following consultation with the education partners. Under this review all projects were assigned a band rating and the progress of individual projects is being considered in the context of the school building programme 2005-09.