Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail)
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66. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the Supplementary Estimates for public services for 2017 published to date; the EU and national rules regarding the provision of funding for Supplementary Estimates; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [52339/17]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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Managing expenditure within their voted allocations is a key responsibility of each Minister and their Departments. At the end of October overall gross voted expenditure of €46 billion was 0.8% below profile. However, given the cash basis of Government accounting and the scale of gross voted expenditure, over €58 billion in aggregate for 2017, Supplementary Estimates play an important role in achieving proper alignment of funding allocations with planned expenditure. The need for Supplementary Estimates can arise from policy decisions, overruns, timing issues or shifts in expenditure requirements. Additional expenditure requirements in one Department may be offset by underspends in other areas.

The procedures in relation to Supplementary Estimates, both substantive and technical, are set out in Public Financial Procedures.  As there is no facility provided under Public Financial Procedures for negative Supplementary Estimates, offsetting voted expenditure underspends in Votes not requiring Supplementary Estimates are not reflected in the aggregate amount below.

The aggregate amount in respect of Supplementary Estimates is €0.49 billion. The amounts by Vote are set out in the table.

Supplementary Estimates proposed for 2017

Substantive Supplementary Estimates

Technical Supplementary Estimates 

As we are operating under the fiscal rules that apply under the preventative arm of the Stability and Growth Pact, Supplementary Estimates can only be provided where they can be accommodated within the requirements of the fiscal rules, in terms of the projected structural budget balance and the application of the Expenditure Benchmark.

Looking at compliance with the Expenditure Benchmark, when compared to the projections set out on Budget day in October this year, the Supplementary Estimates that have been proposed this year would have an estimated impact of c. 0.1% of GDP on compliance with this fiscal rule. However, this does not take account of offsetting underspends to be surrendered at year-end that would mitigate this impact. Given the aggregate underspends at the end of October and November this year, and the amounts surrendered to the Exchequer last year, it would be expected that such underspends would reduce this potential impact.