Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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79. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the amount provided in 2020 for demographic costs by Department; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40401/19]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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The Mid-Year Expenditure Report 2019 sets out estimates of certain demographic pressures in the areas of Health, Social Protection and Education as pre-committed elements of the current expenditure baseline for the period to 2022. These are primary areas of current expenditure which are particularly impacted by demographic changes. For 2020 an amount of €0.45 billion has been allocated across these areas. This is presented at Departmental level in the following table.

Table 1: Demographic Allocations 2020

These allocations are informed by the paper ‘Budgetary Impacts of Changing Demographics 2017 – 2027’, published by the Irish Government Economic and Evaluation Service (IGEES), which can be found on the IGEES website here: .

This paper covers a number of areas of expenditure, including pensions, child benefit, education provision and health schemes such as the Nursing Home Support Scheme. These pure demographic costs are factored in to Ministerial Expenditure Ceilings for Health, Social Protection and Education. As part of the 2019 Spending Review process, an update of this paper is due to be published shortly. This forthcoming paper will again look at the key areas of Health, Social Protection and Education and will examine demographic pressures in these areas over a ten year period.

Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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80. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the value of the Supplementary Estimate that will be required in 2019 for health; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40469/19]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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Managing expenditure within the overall fiscal parameters has been a key factor in ensuring that our fiscal targets have been achieved. A key responsibility of each Minister and Department is delivering public services efficiently and effectively within their budgetary allocations. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is in regular contact with all other Departments and Offices including the Department of Health to monitor expenditure projections against Departmental allocations and also within the overall fiscal parameters. Each month, the drawdown of funds from the Exchequer is reported against published expenditure profiles in the Fiscal Monitor, published by the Department of Finance.

While these monthly returns figures are still marginally under profile at end-September, the Minister for Health has signalled that there are significant pressures on his allocation this year and these issues are forming part of the Budget 2020 discussions. The estimated level of the supplementary estimate will be outlined in the course of the upcoming budgetary process, as is usual. 

However I have highlighted repeatedly to Minister Harris the need for staffing, PCRS and savings measures to be proactively managed by the Department of Health to ensure that there is no repeat of the magnitude of  last year's overrun. The range of new leadership and governance measures that have been put in place, including the appointment of a new CEO and Governance Board for the HSE, are important factors in ensuring the effective, professional management of Health spending in line with the allocations that have been authorised by Dáil Éireann, in order to deliver progressively improved health outcomes for the citizens of our country.