Michael Noonan (Limerick East, Fine Gael)
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Question 158: To ask the Minister for Transport the policy decisions he has made to keep the current expenditure of his Department within the parameters allocated in his Department's budget for 2008; the savings in 2008, and the full year savings of each such initiative; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15564/08]

Noel Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)
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My Department actively monitors expenditure to ensure that annual budgets are not exceeded. No excess is expected this year as these same expenditure monitoring arrangements are in place for 2008. In his Financial Statement to the Dáil in December 2007, the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance announced that the Government had agreed to an efficiency review of administrative expenditure across the public service. While there are no specific savings proposals planned for 2008, my Department has identified initiatives in respect of administrative expenditure under the aforementioned Efficiency Review to take effect from 2009. The Department is not in a position to estimate what, if any, savings might arise before year-end but the advancement of the initiatives associated with the Efficiency Review may lead to some reduction in demand on current budget expenditure in 2008.