Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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276. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the total funds that are available in the stimulus plan announced on 17 July 2012; the amount that has been spent; what it has been spent on; the number of jobs that have been created as a result; the amount that has been left unspent; and the plans regarding same. [42315/13]

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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In July 2012, the Government announced plans for an additional 2.25 billion euro investment in public infrastructure projects in Ireland. The stimulus package comprises two elements:

- 1.4 billion euro to fund the proposed new Public Private Partnerships (PPP) programme. The National Development Finance Agency (NDFA) and the Department of Finance are leading on sourcing the private funding required and are liaising with my Department in this regard;

- 850 million euro coming from asset receipts, to be used as a project preparation facility for the new PPP programme and to fund additional Exchequer capital projects and other publicly needed projects.

The PPP programme will provide schools, roads, health centres, justice facilities and the development of a major third level facility in Grangegorman. Details of all projects and progress to date included in the Stimulus Package are published on the PPP website www.ppp.gov.ie .

It has been the Government's consistent position that funds released from asset disposals should be used to support job creating initiatives in the economy. Funding for enabling works for these PPP projects has already been agreed with departments. Some development works are already underway and up to 50 million euro is expected to be spent next year. The bulk of the funding for PPPs will come from the private sector and will be spent as projects commence construction. Work is on-going to identify suitable projects as other funding becomes available.

As you know job creation is a critical priority for Government. Investment in the projects included in the Stimulus Package is expected to generate approximately 13,000 direct, and many more indirect jobs spread out across the country. At this early stage in the process, most of the employment impact has been in the technical and advisory areas. Further appointments are pending and employment benefits will be evident as the projects progress through the tendering phase and construction gets underway. The indicative timetable for the projects suggests construction is expected to commence on the first roads project by the end of 2013 and on the accommodation projects by Q4 2014.

Although not part of the new PPP programme, as part of the on-going monitoring of employment on current PPPs, the latest figures from the Schools Bundle 3 project indicate 4,079 man-months of full time equivalent employment have been engaged up to the end of August.

We will also be introducing social clauses into capital works projects in so far as possible to help support new jobs and youth employment. Already a pilot is underway on the schools programme which requires that 10% of the aggregate number of person weeks carried out on the site to be undertaken by those who are recruited from the ranks of the long-term unemployed and 2.5% of the aggregate number of person weeks carried out on the site to be undertaken by apprentices.