Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats)
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236. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the expenditure savings that are earmarked for her Department for 2019 that are not accounted for in the mid-year expenditure report or are not included in the fiscal space calculations for 2019. [38479/18]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The Mid Year Expenditure Report 2018 published by the Department of Public Expenditure Reform in July this year sets out the public expenditure position as at the end of June. Whilst the Report noted that total gross voted expenditure was slightly behind profile for the first 6 months of the year, it stated that it was too early to estimate what the end year expenditure position might be and indeed whether Supplementary Estimates or the surrender of funds to the exchequer may arise at year end.

As regards the Budgetary Strategy for Expenditure in 2019, the Expenditure Report in restating the pre-budget Departmental expenditure ceilings for 2018-2020 as set out in the Summer Economic Statement, reaffirmed that a headline deficit of 0.1% of GDP in 2019 would leave a budgetary package of €3.4 billion available for 2019. Of this total, €2.6billion of expenditure is already pre-committed, thus leaving €0.8billion for further allocation as and between taxation and expenditure measures in Budget 2019. The allocation of this €0.8billion will be determined through the Budget 2019 process following which my Department’s 2019 capital and current expenditure ceilings will be finalised for the coming year.