Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein)
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275. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government further to Parliamentary Question No. 159 of 27 September 2022, the amount of capital carryover for each of these categories in each of these years (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [56363/22]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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Under Section 91 of the Finance Act 2004, all or part of any unspent appropriations for capital supply services may be carried over for spend in the following year. This provides for the carryover of up to 10% of the REV allocation (Capital) from one year to the next. This must be expended in the following year- i.e. it is not permissible to further defer any surplus. Details of the capital carryover for the years 2016-2022 are set out below.

There was no capital carryover from my Department’s REV provision in the years 2016-2018.

In 2019, unspent capital balances from the Urban Renewal & Regeneration Fund and the Land Development Agency amounting to €33.5m was carried over into 2020. 

2020 and 2021 saw very significant disruption to the construction sector due to Covid-19 and there have been consequential impacts on drawdown of capital funds. In 2020 there was a surplus arising from unspent allocations in respect of the capital elements of Programmes A (Housing), B (Water), D (Planning) and F (Heritage) of which €214m was carried forward to 2021. In 2021, there was a surplus arising from unspent capital allocations on elements of Programmes A (Housing), D (Planning) and F (Heritage) of which €275.8m was carried forward to 2022. 

Some of the key challenges being faced in 2022 has been the significant level of price inflation to construction materials; supply chain disruption and inflation in the prices of fuel & energy. Despite the very challenging situation of a very limited construction sector during the Covid pandemic and new challenges emerging in 2022 with the impact of pricing /supply and the war in Ukraine, work assertively continues to ramp up the scale of activity across all areas. 

There has, however, been an improvement in the delivery environment, supported by measures introduced by this Government to address material inflation and energy costs, through the introduction of the Inflation/ Supply Chain Delay Co-operation Framework.

For 2022, I have confirmed to the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform that I am seeking full capital carryover of 10%, amounting to some €340m. The details of the source and subsequent allocation of that funding will be published in the REV later this year.  Despite the very challenging context my Department continues to engage proactively on a range of measures to manage, mitigate and expedite where possible throughout 2022. 

As is the norm with major capital programmes, the bulk of housing capital expenditure occurs during Q4 when local authorities submit large volumes of claims for recoupment. This level of activity is expected to result in a very significant increase in capital expenditure on housing programmes in the final weeks of the year.

The Department will continue to carefully monitor and consider all capital expenditure areas in 2022 with a view to keeping within projected investment levels.