Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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300. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if the non-tax new measure expenditures outlined in the summer economic statement are incorporated at the same level within the projections for revenue and balances contained in the fiscal outlook 2025; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44077/24]

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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301. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform for the projected non-tax new measures expenditure contained in the fiscal outlook 2025 for the year 2030; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44078/24]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 300 and 301 together.

Budget 2025 provided for an additional €6.9bn in voted expenditure in 2025. Of this €1.9bn was provided to fund a range of new measures detailed in the Expenditure Report 2025.

In setting out the fiscal parameters for Budget 2025, the Summer Economic Statement (SES) also outlined voted expenditure projections for the period 2026 to 2030 based on a technical assumption of current expenditure increasing by 5 per cent per annum, with capital ceilings from 2027 reverting to the amounts set out in the NDP in 2021 with the addition of funding from the ICNF from 2026. As outlined in the SES, there was a technical assumption in relation to an ELS provision of on average 3½ per cent of the current expenditure base across 2026-2030, with this provision to be re-estimated each year.

The Economic and Fiscal Outlook 2025 revised the technical assumptions in the SES, with current spending growing by 6.3 per cent in 2026 and then by 5 per cent across the period 2027-2030. On a technical basis the capital spending for the period after 2026 also grows by 5 per cent each year. The projections do not make any changes to the technical assumptions in the SES around the split of this current expenditure increase between existing levels of service and new measures. However, the higher level of growth in current spending in 2026 would need to deal with the impact of the carryover of Budget 2025 measures and timing issues in relation to Exchequer pay and pensions payments in 2026. ELS provisions would be a matter for review each year as part of the annual Estimates process taking into account a range of factors including the impact of demographics and changes in pay rates.

Specifically in relation to 2025, Budget 2025 was published on 1 October and adhered to the overall SES parameters with a gross voted total expenditure uplift of €6.9bn set out. Following budget negotiations there was some movement within the €6.9bn uplift between capital spending, existing levels of service and new measures. The final Budget 2025 package included new measures of €1.9bn (see Table 1 of the Expenditure Report 2025).

Such adjustments between expenditure categories is a normal part of the estimates process as Departments examine their existing level of service and policy carryover requirements for the coming year. New measures funded as part of Budget 2025 include:

• the increases in core social protection payments (€12) and allowances,
• extension of the school hot meals programme,
• the provision of 35 new hospital beds and 160 community beds in the health sector,
• expansion of the free schoolbooks scheme to transition year and senior cycle students,
• the recruitment of up to one thousand trainee Gardaí and an additional 150 Garda staff.