Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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541. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform to provide a breakdown of each of the aggregate amounts for 2025 decisions, public sector pay agreement, increase in recipients, other, key policy adjustments and expansion of services, and Ukraine related expenditure respectively set out on Table 2 on page 12 of the Expenditure Report, by Department, in tabular form. [58475/25]

Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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Table 2 in the Expenditure Report 2026 provided a description of the figures included in the overall uplift for next year and how these estimates can be categorised. It outlined that:

• €0.9 billion has been provided for increased recipients of public services particularly in the area of social protection, housing and childcare and disability. This includes an additional c.30,000 recipients in pensions, illness, disability and carers schemes in 2026.
• €2.2 billion has been provided for key policy adjustments and expansion of services to reflect expenditure for broadening the availability of supports, expansion of eligibility for schemes, extension of policies or introduction of new supports to deliver enhanced services for citizens, particularly through social protection, education & youth and further & higher education.
• The “Other” category reflects costs associated with the running of particular schemes and recruitment of additional staff, this includes the World Food Programme, Mother and Baby Institution Payment Scheme and additional funding in the justice sector.
• €1.1 billion has been provided for the 2026 cost of decisions taken in 2025 and carryover of Budget 2025 decisions. Some examples include the additional costs of running public transport services through the Public Service Obligation payments, costs associated with rollout of Jobseeker’s Pay-Related Benefit and introduction of auto-enrolment, Bovine TB Action Plan, and costs of the 2025 childcare measures.
• €1.2 billion has been allocated to fund the costs of the public sector pay agreement arising in 2026 for all sectors, including the pension impact of this agreement.