Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein)
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180. To ask the Minister for Health the status of the discussion in relation to multi-annual funding for community projects especially those in Section 38 and Section 39 organisations. [44555/22]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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Section 38s and 39s have service provision arrangements with the HSE across a range of health and social care areas. Funding for current expenditure for these organisations is allocated on an annual (single- year) basis through the Estimates process.

There has been a discussion paper published by the Department of Public Expenditure that highlights the benefits of introducing multi annual funding and discusses the possible future introduction of it for the Garda Siochana vote.

I acknowledge that there are potential benefits of introducing Multi Annual Funding to improve planning over a multi annual horizon on a more structured/sustainable timeframe than a single year.

However, there currently exist a range of legislative barriers to the introduction of multi annual funding for these providers on the basis that the Oireachtas only votes current expenditure to individual Government departments for a single year at a time. This in turn translates into the legislative provisions under the Health Act 2004 (as amended) where the Department confirms the funding determination to the HSE each year, post Budget, to inform the development of the HSE's National Service Plan. This funding allocation and service planning process only occurs on a planning horizon of a single year at a time.

The position is different in relation to capital expenditure where the National Development Plan sets out the longer-term investment plan over multiple years.