John O'Mahony (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Question 281: To ask the Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport the amount of unspent money returned by her Department to the Department of Finance each year since 2007; the departmental budget for each year since 2007; the projects for which this money was originally earmarked in tabular form; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [21788/10]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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The surplus amounts surrendered by my Department to the Department of Finance and the departmental budgets for each year 2007 to 2009 are outlined in the table below. A detailed breakdown of the figures for 2007 and 2008 is published in the Comptroller and Auditor General's Audit of Appropriation Accounts for each year. The Appropriation Accounts also contain an explanation of the variances between the outturn figure and the estimate provision under various expenditure subheads.

In relation to the projects for which the surrendered funds were originally earmarked, the capital grant schemes in my Department are demand-led and depend on projects progressing to a satisfactory level to allow payment of funding. Accordingly, the funds allocated are not specifically earmarked for payment to a specific project in a given year and depend on the progress of the project. In relation to other capital projects, the Deputy will be aware that, in accordance with Section 91 of the Finance Act 2004, capital monies unspent in a particular year can be carried forward to be spent in the following year, subject to Department of Finance approval and certain limits. This deferred expenditure was applied to some unspent capital monies in 2007 and 2008, as approved by the Department of Finance.

The amounts of deferred expenditure are shown in the table below and are also outlined in detail in the Appropriation Accounts and the Revised Estimates Volume for my Department's Vote for each year. The remaining unspent amounts surrendered to the Department of Finance in 2007 and 2008 relate to current expenditure savings. Other than a small amount of capital expenditure in the administrative budget, all of the savings in 2009 relate to current expenditure, including administrative budget savings, pay savings and other efficiency savings.

1Includes deferred surrender of capital expenditure from previous year.

2Estimated pending completion of C&AG annual Audit of Appropriation Accounts.