Niall Collins (Limerick, Fianna Fail)
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Question 894: To ask the Minister for Health the amount of funding committed to in his Department for capital projects; if he will provide details of the projects and funding committed; the funds that have been drawn down for the projects; when the balance will be drawn down; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26633/12]

James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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My Department's capital allocation for 2012 is €17.5m of which €0.473m is allocated to support the Department ICT and office equipment needs. Following the transfer of functions between Government Departments in 2011, responsibility for the Drugs Strategy was transferred to the Department of Health. In this regard €1m of the Department's allocation is allocated to the Drugs Initiative. The remaining €16.027m is allocated to support directly funded agencies in fulfilling their functions.

To date, expenditure in respect of ICT and office equipment to support the Department's ICT network amounts to €0.075m. My Department is working with the HSE with regard to addiction service related projects. The commitments of €13.922m shown in the table below relate to the Health Research Board (HRB). This funding supports inter alia, equipment, clinical scientist awards, translational research awards, PhD scholars' programme, Food & Health Research and provision for the HRB's contribution to the construction of a clinical research facility at University College Hospital Galway. The remaining funding has been indented for ICT, office equipment and furniture to support the directly funded agencies in delivering their functions. Provision has also been made for contingency to support applications made by the agencies during the course of the year.

The bulk of the Department's capital allocation is profiled for draw down in the second half of the year. It is expected that the balance will be drawn down before the year end.