Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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623. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht her plans to ensure the full spend of all funding provided to her Department for 2017 including carry over of capital from 2016 and pre payments to local authorities made in 2016 or 2017; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [36437/17]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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A gross provision of €368.422 million is available to my Department across five programme areas in 2017 comprised of current funding of €249.637 million and capital funding of €118.785 million. In addition, a further €13.548 million in capital funding was carried over from the 2016 provision.

It is difficult to assess the full year expenditure for my Department at this point in time, as we are only just over half way through the year. My Department has responsibility for a very broad and diverse range of projects and programmes and work is ongoing on delivering these programmes. Provisional current and capital expenditure figures in respect of my Department at Vote level as of 30 June 2017 indicate that expenditure is at approximately 81.2% of profile. The end of year outturn will be impacted by the cost and timing of delivery of projects and programmes and unexpected delays can and do occur in the drawdown of funding by grantees from time to time. Expenditure trends are kept under review and will continue to be carefully monitored up to year end to ensure the best and most efficient use of available financial resources.

My Department continues to engage closely with Local Authorities to ensure that all allocated funding is spent promptly and in accordance with project proposals and the provisions of the Public Spending Code. My officials are continuing to impress on all Local Authorities the need to have their projects completed as soon as possible. In this context, satisfactory progress in relation to projects under the 2016 schemes will be an important consideration in any 2017 funding decisions.