Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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303. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform his plans to review the national development plan in terms of project scheduling and prioritisation due to Covid-19; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23754/20]

Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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In line with Programme for Government commitments and in my capacity as Minister for Public Expenditure & Reform I intend to shortly bring proposals to the Government regarding the launch of a phased, structured and in-depth review of the National Development Plan (NDP) in order to advance the priorities identified in the Programme for Government including climate change, housing policy, transport policy, implementation of Sláintecare and balanced regional development, aligned also with the associated multi-annual resourcing requirements.

The NDP set out 5-year expenditure allocations by Department for the period 2018 – 2022, devised to give Departments a degree of certainty for future planning, with the expectation that DPER would not make substantial changes to published allocations. However, in direct response to Covid-19, necessary and large-scale revisions were made to capital allocations for 2020 primarily in Health and Business, Enterprise and Innovation. Subsequently, as part of the July Stimulus, a further €500 million was provided to accelerate capital works across a wide range of areas generating jobs and economic activity across all regions of the country. These measures will be reflected as appropriate within the review of the NDP.