Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe has denied the allocation of extra money to Government departments earlier than normal is a clearing of the decks for a general election.
Mr Donohoe on Tuesday briefed Cabinet on plans to allocate a net €6.3 billion to departments to fund capital works, public pay costs and cost of living measures.
Cabinet ministers were asked for details of their supplementary estimates shortly after the budget, with the figures then being brought to Cabinet on Tuesday and to the Dáil this week for approval – a timeline at least a month earlier than is normally the case.
“We’ve handled the supplementary estimate process in the same way I have every other year. It’s exactly the same,” he said, arguing that the Government had to allocate the funds to to ensure Departments had funding for the rest of the year. He added that “nobody had expressed any surprise to me” when they were asked to supply the figures.
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“If we didn’t bring forward these supplementary estimates at this point, when it would come to the payment of cost of living measures, when it will come to Government departments including the Department of Health being able to meet the funding requirements they’re going to have in November, there would be a risk that would not be met, that is what’s driving this.”
Mr Donohoe said that the proposals he brought to Government this morning were part of the “normal procedure at this point in the year”, adding that he was “handling this issue in the same way as I have done in other years”.
The extra money deal with the cost of funding the health service for this year and next, paying for the cost of living package, the impact of the public sector pay agreement that was reached earlier on in the year and provide additional capital to Government departments including the Department of Education, Department of Housing and the Department of Integration.
Darragh O’Brien’s department is getting an additional €1.3 billion for pay and additional capital, while Minister for Education Norma Foley is getting an additional €1.1 billion for the same items and to pay for cost of living measures. The Department of Integration is getting €600 million to deal with the impact of International Protection, while the Department of the Environment is getting €553 million to pay for energy credits to be rolled out shortly.
The extra allocations have a value of €7.1 billion in gross terms, or €6.3 billion net once savings achieved in the public service are offset against the total, Mr Donohoe said.
The extra money allocated for the public sector pay deal is €1.75 billion, while the Department of Social Protection, the net value of the allocation is €875 million, mostly to be spent on the cost of living measures approved as part of Budget 2025.
He said that the cost of Covid, the introduction of noncore expenditure as part of the government’s fiscal policy and in-year decisions on cost of living in particular have driven up the value of supplementary estimates since 2020. They are roughly in line with 2022, Mr Donohoe said.
Expenditure in the health service, he said, has moved back in line with what had been expected but that the Government needed the position at the end of the year to be in line with what was agreed on budget day. He said any hiring that takes place in the HSE had to be in line with the strategy announced in the budget.
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