Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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655. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform whether any agreements, understandings or lists have been made since he took office, or exchanged with independent TDs who now support the Government to include projects in their constituencies in the future National Development Plan and/or the HSE Capital Plan; and if so, whether there are documents, notes, messages of any kind that relate to this between him and/or his advisers, staff, party workers and any of those TDs or their advisers, staff and party workers. [47263/25]

Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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The Programme for Government has prioritised an early review of the National Development Plan (NDP), to be published this July. The aim of the Review is to improve our infrastructure, particularly water, energy, transport and housing. Improvements to this supporting economic infrastructure are necessary to enable the delivery of hundreds of thousands of additional homes and to boost our competitiveness.

Since April and continuing to this month, a process of bilateral engagement has taken place between my Department and individual spending Departments to assess their investment plans and programmes. This has focused on funding levels taking into account the cost of proposals in the context of the fiscal parameters and competing priorities, capacity to deliver proposals within the period of the Review, and the alignment of proposals with the Review objectives. The Independent TD's within the Government would have had input in their own sectoral areas and would have set out national sectoral priorities for the areas in which they are responsible.  

In addition, my Department established a public consultation which encouraged the input of members of the public, elected representatives and other organisations to share their views on infrastructure priorities in the coming 10 years. This was also considered in agreeing the final allocations provided in the revised National Development Plan 2025, and a summary of the consultations received was included in the final report. 

The final review document was published on 22nd July and set out five year capital allocations to departments over the period 2026 to 2030 and overall capital ceilings to 2035. The capital allocations provided were guided by the detailed bilateral discussions with sectoral Ministers and Departments and by overall prioritisation identified in the Programme for Government and the inputs of the public consultation. There were no alternative lists or agreements that formed part of the decision making process. 

Following the publication of sectoral ceilings in the review, sectoral publications outlining the particular programmes being funded from the NDP will be published by responsible Ministers and Departments later this year. Any decision on healthcare infrastructure will be a matter for the Minister for Health, her Department and the HSE.