I propose with the permission of the Ceann Comhairle, to take Questions Nos. 11 to 19, inclusive, together.
The 1981 Current Budget provides for total revenue receipts of £3,815 million. Actual receipts for the first three months of the year amounted to £871 million, that is, 22.8 per cent of budget. The corresponding percentage received in the first three months of 1980 was 23.7 per cent. The lower percentage of total receipts in the first three months of 1981 is due to the fact that certain revenue receipts delayed by the 1979 Post Office dispute were received in the first quarter of 1980, to the 1980 change in the dates of payment of income tax by the self-employed, to the full-year effects of the substantial income tax concessions introduced in the 1980 Budget which applied from April 1980 and to the fact that the increased revenue arising from the 1981 Budget changes will be received mainly in the remaining nine months of the year.
On the expenditure side, the 1981 Current Budget provides for total spending of £4,330 million, of which £960 million is for Central Fund Services and £3,370 million for the non-capital supply services. Actual expenditure on Central Fund Services in the first three months of the year was £264 million or 27½ per cent of the annual provision. This compares with 20.2 per cent spent in the first quarter of 1980 and an average of 26½ per cent for the first quarter of the previous two years. The higher than average percentage spent in the first quarter of the present year was entirely due to the technical timing of issues to the capital services redemption account.
In the case of the non-capital supply services, expenditure in the first three months of the year amounted to £812 million or 24.1 per cent of total budget. The percentage spent in the corresponding period last year was 22.6 per cent. The previous five year average was 23 per cent. The percentage spent in the first three months of the current year was affected by technical factors which render it difficult to make comparisons with previous years.
One major factor, for example, which distorts any comparison between this year and last arises in the case of the Health Vote, where a sizeable pay award, including substantial arrears extending back to 1979, was paid to nurses subsequent to the end of March 1980, with the result that the 1980 March quarter expenditure was artificially low.
The 1981 Budget provision for Exchequer-financed capital expenditure, including non-programme outlays, is £1,163 million, of which £273 million — 23½ per cent — was spent in the first quarter of the year. There is no established pattern for capital expenditure since it depends largely on dates contracts are signed, progress made on various projects, weather conditions, and so on. The first quarter percentages spent in the previous four years varied from 17 per cent to 28 per cent of the total budget. The Exchequer returns for the first quarter of the year, therefore, do not support the implications in the questions that there has been a departure from budgetary targets.
Supplementary Estimates will, of course, be required to implement the social welfare increases contained in the budget and the recently announced housing and farming packages.