Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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165. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the breakdown of pre-committed expenditure, that is, demographics, the public service stability agreement, carryover from budget 2019, capital/NDP and carryover from budget 2020 in each year from 2020 to 2025, including the carryover costs from budget 2020, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43537/19]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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Each year, certain items of expenditure are classified as pre-committed and are included in the pre-Budget position. This includes allocations to cover demographic costs, public service pay agreements, full year costs of budget measures from previous years and capital expenditure set out in the National Development Plan. As outlined in the Mid-Year Expenditure Report 2019, pre-committed expenditure for these items in Budget 2020 amounted to €2.1 billion.

Expenditure Report 2020 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. An amount of under €0.5 billion has been allocated each year to 2022 across these areas. This is presented at Departmental level in the following table.

Demographic Allocations 2021 – 2022 (€m)

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: . An update of this paper was published alongside Budget 2020, which can be found here: . In future years, demographic allocations may be re-stated to reflect this more up-to-date analysis.

There are carryover costs in 2021 relating to certain current expenditure measures introduced in Budget 2020. This amounts to an estimated €0.2 billion in 2021 and is set out in table 7 on page 46 of Expenditure Report 2020 as well as in the following table.

Carryover Impact of Certain Budget 2020 Measures in 2021 (€m)

This allocation relates to measures to be implemented during 2020 and as such the cost in 2021 will depend on factors such as timing and take-up of initiatives. As is usual, these costs will be re-examined during the course of the year and may be re-stated in the 2020 Mid-Year Expenditure Report. In addition, there is a carryover impact of €0.3 billion in 2021 relating to elements of the Public Service Stability Agreement that come into effect in 2020.

Expenditure Report 2020 also set out gross voted capital expenditure allocations over the period to 2022. An overview of pre-committed expenditure for the period is set out in the following table. Estimates beyond this will be considered in the medium-term.

Pre-Committed Expenditure 2020 – 2022 (€bn)