John O'Mahony (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Question 26: To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources if he will identify areas in his Department and agencies where savings can be found in view of the current fiscal crisis; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44878/10]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)
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Under the four year National Recovery Plan 2011 – 2014, my Department is committed to achieving a targeted €20m in savings by 2014. These savings will be made up of €14.2m on programme spend with the balance of €5.8m coming from pay and administration. €7.9m of these saving are front-loaded in 2011 (€6.2m on programme and €1.7m on administration). The details of the measures underpinning the 2011 savings will be announced on Budget Day.

These measures build on significant savings made by my Department in recent years especially as regards Administration costs. Accordingly the 2010 Administrative Budget allocation for my Department was about €29m as opposed to about €42m in 2007. Over the period the staffing complement of the Department reduced from 339 to 268 at present.