Ministerial Gross Voted Current Expenditure Ceilings for the Departments of Health, Social Protection and Education include an estimation of demographic costs each year. These are primary areas of current expenditure that are particularly impacted by demographic pressures. For the last number of years, these demographic projections have been informed by the Irish Government Economic and Evaluation Service (IGEES) paper ‘Budgetary Impacts of Changing Demographics 2017 – 2027.’ The paper can be found on the IGEES website (https://igees.gov.ie/budgetary-impact-of-changing-demographics-2017-to-2027/).
This paper covers a number of areas of expenditure, including pensions, child benefit, education provision and health schemes such as the Nursing Home Support Scheme and estimates pure demographic costs to be factored into Expenditure Ceilings. As part of the 2019 Spending Review process, an update of this paper is due to be published in October in the overall context of Budget 2020. This forthcoming paper will again look at the key areas of Health, Social Protection and Education and will examine demographic pressures in these areas over a ten year period.