Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein)
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242. To ask the Minister for Finance the total amount of funding included in respect of expenditure associated with Vote 34, housing, for general government balance calculations as determined by the Central Statistics Office for the years 2020, 2021 and 2022, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24784/22]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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The Central Statistics Office (CSO) is responsible for the compilation of the general government revenue, expenditure, deficit and debt outturn statistics. My department has responsibility for the medium-term forecasts of these statistics, which are published twice a year as part of the Stability Programme Update and Budget. Both the outturn and the forecasts, are compiled in accordance with the European System of Accounts 2010 (ESA2010).

As part of the overall process, the CSO and my department make use of a variety of administrative and survey data sources, including an extract of the Estimates, which incorporates Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage.

ESA2010 outlines the categories in which general government expenditure and revenue must be compiled and it requires all transactions to be compiled on an accruals basis, so there is not a one for one link between the cash based government accounts and the general government balance.

As the ESA2010 framework requires the compilation of government expenditure by type(compensation of employees, intermediate consumption, social benefits, etc.), a detailed profile of general government expenditure by vote is not maintained. Furthermore, some of the expenditure within the Estimates data are transfers to other general government entities, e.g. Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS) and Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) administered by Local Authorities; in these cases it is the final expenditure by Local Authorities that must be recorded, not the transfer from the Vote. Therefore, there is not a direct one-to-one relationship between Vote 34 and general government expenditure.

However to give some insight, officials in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform have advised that the expenditure on Vote 34 for 2020 and 2021, and the allocation on 2022, are as outlined in the table below:

Note: Values are inclusive of capital carryover expenditure.