Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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164. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection the total estimated expenditure of her Department in 2015 in tabular form; the budget for expenditure agreed at the start of the year for 2015; the extra expenditure or savings in this budget during the year to date; when and under what process this expenditure and these savings were approved; and her Department's budget for expenditure in 2016. [37268/15]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The 2015 Revised Estimates Volume provided for total current and capital expenditure by the Department of Social Protection (DSP) of €19,378 million in 2015. The Expenditure Report 2016 published by the Department of Public Expenditure on Budget Day forecasts an out-turn of €19,912 million in 2015. This forecast takes account of the costs associated with:

- the announcement on Budget Day that a 75% Christmas Bonus will be paid to over 1.2 million welfare recipients this year,

- the bringing forward into 2015 of certain pension and other payments due on Friday, January 1, 2016, and

- some overspends on certain DSP schemes.

Additional Net Vote expenditure over and above that provided for in the 2015 REV Estimate will need to be provided for by way of Supplementary Estimate later this year and will be subject to approval by the Dáil.

It is too early at this stage to be precise as to the scale of the Supplementary Estimate that will be required given the demand led nature of most DSP expenditure and the amount of the Exchequer subvention to the Social Insurance Fund that will be required, if any, in 2015. The latter is dependent on the overall financial position of the Social Insurance Fund including PRSI income which is currently running over €200 million ahead of profile.

The Budget Day provision for DSP in 2016 is €19,638 million.