Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 274: To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the action he has taken to accelerate capital works that are shovel-ready and other labour-intensive projects, recognising that a public works programme can play an important role in any job creation strategy. [21152/11]

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context

As the Deputy is aware, the Minister for Finance recently announced this Government's Jobs Initiative. The Initiative provided for a further €30 million for school works and associated works in 2011 over the existing allocation. Some €20 million of this is being reallocated by the Minister for Education and Skills from within his own Department's allocation. A further €10 million of Exchequer funding has been made available to the Department from the proceeds of the new pension levy also announced in the Initiative. This is to be allocated to immediately-ready projects to be delivered by schools. The Initiative also provided for an additional €60 million to be reallocated from within the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport's overall allocation to invest in our regional and local roads to carry out much-needed surface restoration and road reconstruction works. This important, remedial work is overdue and the additional money invested will allow local authorities to bring forward important projects to 2011 that had previously been pushed back to 2012.

We are currently undertaking a major review across Government of our capital investment programme with a view to ensuring that allocations are prioritised towards those capital projects and programmes that will maximise economic benefits to the state, promote sustainable jobs growth in the medium term an address immediate and urgent social deficits.