Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)
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22. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he will indicate his targets on public expenditure for Budget 2014; the extent to which these targets are influenced by the EU Two-Pack regulations; his current views on the mix of strategies he intends to pursue to meet those targets. [24520/13]

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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Departmental current expenditure ceilings for 2014 were set out in the Comprehensive Expenditure Report 2012-2014 , published in December 2011, which first set out Departmental expenditure ceilings on a three year basis. Updated 2014 ceilings, taking account of pressures and adjustments, were set out in the Expenditure Report 2013 (published in December 2012) together with an aggregate current expenditure ceiling for 2015. It is intended that the Departmental expenditure ceilings for the period 2014-2016 will be agreed by Government as part of the Budget and published at that time.

The “two-pack” is a set of two EU regulations which recently finalised, and which introduces a common budgetary timeline across all euro area Member States. It requires that all Member States must publish their draft budget for central government and the main parameters of all other General Government sub-sectors no later than 15 October each year and that the final budget should be adopted or fixed upon annually by 31 December. To summarise, the “two-pack” focuses on the harmonisation of budgetary processes across Euro member states.

As regards fiscal planning, a common set of EU rules have been set out in the Fiscal Compact Treaty and the so-called “six-pack” of EU regulations and one directive. Ireland's reformed domestic fiscal arrangements including the recently enacted Fiscal Responsibility Act and the published Ministers & Secretaries (Amendment) Bill are set within the context of these new EU rules.

While the structural economic and budgetary reforms that the Government is delivering will bring a return to prosperity and growth over the medium term, the current international economic position combined with the high levels of uncertainty across the world's financial market will require Ireland to maintain fiscal discipline into 2014. In this regard, the Expenditure Report 2013, published on 5 December 2012, includes further well-specified expenditure savings measures across every area of Government spending. These will be developed further in Budget 2014.