Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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157. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the planned spending for all €23 billion of climate-related spending outlined in the national development plan, NDP, by year; the projected budgetary impact; and the estimated impact on the general Government balance, that is, GNI* in tabular form. [26092/19]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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The Government has committed to increasing public capital investment to about 4% of GNI* and then maintaining public investment at this level over the remaining period of the National Development Plan (NDP).

The NDP has pledged that €21.8 billion will be invested in the low carbon transition. This includes €7.6 billion in Exchequer funding and €14.2 billion of non-Exchequer funding - mainly investment by the commercial State sector. In addition, €8.6 billion of Exchequer funding is allocated for investment in Sustainable Mobility, with €8.8 billion investment planned in Sustainable Management of Water and other Environmental Resources and a further €14.5 billion allocated to Compact Growth.

This investment will fund numerous flagship investment programmes, from supports for energy efficiency, to the delivery of major new public transport projects such as MetroLink. Details of the projects that will be supported by this investment are available from the relevant Departments.

The breakdown of the resource allocations for the delivery of the National Strategic Objectives most relevant to Climate Action over the period of the NDP (2018-2027) is provided in Table 1 attached. In terms of annual allocations, Departmental Exchequer capital allocations are available for the period 2019-2022 (see attached Table 2 which sets out the Exchequer capital allocations for the Departments most relevant to the climate action NSOs). The intention is to extend these further in Budget 2020.

Table 1. Indicative resource allocations for the delivery of NSOs, and for named Strategic Investment Priorities under each NSO, over the period 2018-2027

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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158. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if an internationally recognised benchmark is being used for determining qualification as the €23 billion green capital spending outlined in the NDP; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26093/19]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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While there is no standard taxonomy in place internationally to determine exactly what might qualify as green spending, it is clear that the items contained within Strategic Outcome 8 in the National Development Plan on Transition to a Low-Carbon and Climate-Resilient Society (€21.8 billion) would meet any reasonable definition of green expenditure.

For example, Ireland's Sovereign Green Bond was issued under a framework designed to align with the Green Bond Principles published by the International Capital Market Association. These principles are the most common principles in use internationally. Among other categories, the green bond principles consider investment in environmentally sustainable management of living natural resources and land use, sustainable water and wastewater management and clean transportation as eligible to be considered to be green.

As you will note, the National Development Plan took a narrower definition. The €8.6 billion investment in sustainable mobility was contained within a standalone National Strategic Outcome, as was the €8.8 billion investment in Sustainable Management of Water and other Environmental Resources and the €14.5 billion allocated to Compact Growth.

It is clear that were any standard benchmark of what constitutes green expenditure applied to the National Development Plan, the proportion of the NDP's expenditure that could be considered to be green would be vastly higher than the sums provided for National Strategic Outcome 8 on Transition to a Low-Carbon and Climate-Resilient Society.