Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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15. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the way ongoing delays in major capital projects can be tackled; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16784/14]

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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As the Deputy is aware, my Department sets the capital allocations for Departments and the delegated sanction arrangements under which they make their spending decisions. The actual roll-out of particular capital projects and programmes is, of course, managed by the individual line Departments and their agencies who are responsible for project and programme delivery.

All Departments are required to report to my Department on a monthly basis in relation to their actual expenditure compared with their published profiles and to explain variances where they arise. My officials liaise with Departments to ensure that any issues are addressed promptly in order that there are no expenditure overruns and, in relation to capital expenditure, that projects and programmes are progressed in a timely manner.

It is notable that of the €7.3 billion allocated to capital budgets over the last two years, €7.2 billion has been spent. This level of spend, when compared with the allocation, indicates that Departments' capital spending plans are generally progressing on time.

We recently looked at the 20 largest capital projects being delivered at the moment by Departments - about half of these are Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) and the remainder are traditional Exchequer-funded or part-Exchequer funded projects.  I am happy to report that, for most of these large scale projects, Departments did not identify major issues relating to the timeliness of delivery.  As would be expected with any large scale infrastructure development, some issues had been experienced in certain cases and these either have already been or are currently being managed by the relevant Departments and Agencies to mitigate risk to delivery while continuing to help ensure value for money.  These issues include time taken to reach planning decisions, time taken to reach financial close with project funders (in relation to PPPs) and capacity constraints within the construction industry.

Government is very conscious of the fact that we need to focus on the Construction sector. With this in mind, we had a special Government meeting recently on construction and will shortly publish a Government response to address the challenges in the sector in a targeted and meaningful way. 

As I announced on Budget day, a review of the public capital programme will be undertaken by my Department this year. This exercise commenced recently and will culminate in the setting of the Government's capital investment framework for the next five years.