Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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90. To ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development the allocated budget for her Department in each of the years since 2017; and the actual expenditure of her Department in each of the years since 2017, in tabular form. [17982/22]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The allocated gross budget and actual gross expenditure for the Department is provided below in tabular format for each of the years since 2017.

While the Department of Rural and Community Development was established in July 2017, the figures for 2017 reflect the full budget and expenditure for that year, for the functions transferred at that time.

It is also worth noting that since the establishment of the Department in 2017, additional functions have transferred under its remit. Notably, the Community Services Programme transferred in 2018 and the Islands function transferred in 2020. A full year of budget and expenditure is reflected in the below table for those functions for those years onwards.

The table shows where unspent capital appropriations in certain years were added to the estimate in the following year to produce the total budget available, as allowed for under Section 91 of the Finance Act 2004. This is most notable for 2021 and 2022 where the impact of COVID-19 on activity within the construction sector was a significant factor in the level of unspent capital funding brought forward into those years. It is also important to note that the 2020 allocation included €37 million in once off funding for COVID-19 Supports, with a further €10 million in once off funding provided in 2021 for that purpose.

The Department’s gross allocation has increased substantially from €163 million in 2017 to €379 million in 2022, which has allowed greatly increased support for communities across Ireland, in both urban and rural settings.