Written answers
Wednesday, 29 September 2010
Department of Finance
Public Service Expenditure
11:00 pm
Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Question 427: To ask the Minister for Finance the proportion of gross domestic product spending on essential public services; the proportion of gross domestic product spending on essential public services in comparison with other EU 27 member states; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31922/10]
Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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The question of what constitutes "essential public services" is, of course, to some degree a subjective matter, and I note that the Deputy has not defined his terms in this regard. However, the table below, which is extracted from the 2010 Revised Estimates Volume, published in February 2010, sets out the "functional classification" of Gross Current Voted Expenditure as a proportion of Gross National Product (which is a more appropriate indicator than Gross Domestic Product in Ireland's case) for each of the years 2006 to 2010. The table shows that expenditure on "Social Services" category — mainly Social Welfare, Health and Education — has increased from 22.1% of GNP in 2006 to an estimated 35% of GNP in 2010.
My Department does not maintain statistics on other EU countries, but I would direct the Deputy to the website of Eurostat, the EU statistics agency at http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat, which provides access to a large amount of EU wide information in this area.
| Gross Current Expenditure Expressed as a Percentage (%) of Gross National Product | ||||||
| Functional Classification | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | |
| Economic Services | ||||||
| Industry and Labour (including NTF expenditure) | 0.9% | 0.9% | 1.0% | 1.1% | 1.2% | |
| Agriculture | 0.9% | 0.8% | 0.9% | 1.1% | 1.0% | |
| Fisheries and Forestry | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.1% | |
| Tourism | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.2% | 0.2% | |
| Subtotal | 1.9% | 1.9% | 2.1% | 2.4% | 2.5% | |
| Social Services | ||||||
| Health | 8.2% | 8.9% | 9.9% | 11.4% | 11.4% | |
| Education | 4.8% | 4.9% | 5.5% | 6.4% | 6.3% | |
| Social Welfare (including SIF expenditure) | 8.9% | 9.6% | 11.5% | 15.6% | 16.3% | |
| Housing | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.2% | 0.3% | |
| Subsidies | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.2% | |
| Subtotal | 22.1% | 23.7% | 27.3% | 33.9% | 35.0% | |
| Security | ||||||
| Defence | 0.6% | 0.6% | 0.7% | 0.8% | 0.7% | |
| Garda | 0.8% | 0.9% | 1.0% | 1.2% | 1.1% | |
| Prisons | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.3% | 0.3% | 0.3% | |
| Legal, etc. | 0.4% | 0.4% | 0.5% | 0.4% | 0.4% | |
| Subtotal | 2.0% | 2.2% | 2.4% | 2.6% | 2.5% | |
| Other | 2.4% | 2.4% | 2.7% | 2.9% | 2.8% | |
| Gross Current Expenditure on Services | 28.4% | 30.1% | 34.5% | 41.8% | 42.4% | |
| Less | ||||||
| Appropriations-in-Aid (including SIF and NTF expenditure) | 6.9% | 7.2% | 8.2% | 11.6% | 11.2% | |
| 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | ||||
| Net Current Voted Expenditure | 21.5% | 22.9% | 26.4% | 30.3% | 31.2% | |
| Exchequer pay and pensions (a) | Net | 10.6% | 10.9% | 12.1% | 13.9% | 13.4% |
| included in above | Gross | 11.0% | 11.3% | 12.5% | 15.0% | 14.6% |
| GNP Figures* (€m) | 152,529 | 161,244 | 154,596 | 133,175 | 129,100 | |
| *2006-2008 as per the CSO. 2009 and 2010 are Department of Finance estimates. | ||||||
| (a) Figures for Exchequer pay and pensions in 2009 and 2010 includes €61m and €63m, respectively, of 'Payroll' expenditure previously recorded as 'Non-pay' expenditure. |
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