Erin McGreehan (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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58. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform for an overview of the progress made to date under National Strategic Outcome 10 of the National Development Plan 2021-2030; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39951/25]

Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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As Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitisation I am responsible for setting the overall capital allocations across Departments and for monitoring monthly expenditure at Departmental level.

The responsibility for the management and delivery of individual investment projects or sectoral policy strategies, within the allocations agreed under the National Development Plan (NDP), rests with the individual sponsoring Department in each case. Each Minister is responsible for deciding on the priority programmes and projects that will be delivered under their remit within the NDP and for setting out the timelines for delivery.

NSO 10 refers to access to quality childcare, education and health services and aims to ensure that the co-ordination and provision of childcare places, primary and post-primary schools places and health infrastructure with the spatial development of cities and regions is consistent with the objectives of the national planning framework.

The Programme for Government has outlined 21 specific commitments on childcare, including a commitment for the first time to provide capital investment to build or purchase state-owned early learning and childcare facilities, to create additional capacity in areas where unmet need exists. State ownership of facilities is a very substantial and significant development and offers the potential for much greater scope to influence the nature and volume of provision available and to ensure better alignment with estimated demand. This will be advanced through undertaking a broad consultation and the publication of a detailed Action Plan to build an affordable, high-quality, accessible early childhood education and care system with State-led facilities adding capacity.

In terms of NSO 10, the Department of Children, Disability and Equality, have been allocated €100 million across its various capital programmes to support a range of key services in respect of children and young people and international migrants. €1.6 billion has been allocated to the Department of Education to invest in primary and post-primary infrastructure and will continue to deliver school building projects under various programmes and schemes, such as the Large Scale Capital Programme, and the Additional School Accommodation Scheme. The Department of Health have been allocated funding of almost €1.5 billion to improve health facilities, provide new primary care centres, community nursing units and new hospital ward blocks.

Further details of projects and programmes being delivered under NSO 10 can be found in the capital investment tracker which provides a composite update on the progress of all major investments with an estimated cost of greater than €20 million. Accompanying the tracker, the myProjectIreland interactive map details projects across the country and provides details on specific projects by county and contains smaller investments such as schools and health facilities.