Vol. 555 No. 2
411 Mr. R. Bruton asked the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs the amount of money that remains available to his Department from the voted spending allocation agreed in the Revised Estimates 2002, to spend in the last quarter of 2002 for capital spending and for current spending; and the way in which this compares with the amount spent for current and for capital purposes in the last quarter of 2001. [18415/02]
412 Mr. R. Bruton asked the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs the adjustments which he plans to introduce in the last quarter of 2002 in order to bring the overall spending for the year in line with the moneys provided in the Estimates. [18422/02]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 411 and 412 together.
The information in relation to what remains to be spent by my Department in the last quarter of 2002 compared with 2001 is in the following table.
|
Year |
Overall allocation |
Remaining at30 September |
|
2001 |
€324m (i) |
Capital –€6m |
|
Current –€6.2m |
||
|
2002 |
See note (ii) below |
€137.4m |
(i) Department of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands allocation.
(ii) The Deputy will be aware that the allocations for the new Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs which was established in 2002 are made up from a combination of some former allocations to the Department of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands and money allocated in other Votes to services now being handled in my Department. The amended allocations for 2002 for these Departments will be published shortly. I regret that it was not possible in the time available to provide a capital-current breakdown of what remains to be spent in the final quarter of 2002.
The expenditure trends of the new Department to date this year do not suggest that there will be any need to make any adjustments to meet overall spending targets over 2002.
413 Mr. R. Bruton asked the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs his estimate of the average index of inflation between the last quarter of 2001 and the last quarter of 2002 in the cost of employment goods and services which make up his Department's expenditure. [18429/02]
The rate of inflation is forecast by the Department of Finance to average 4.5% in 2002. The latest available figure, which relates to September 2002, shows the annual rate of inflation to be 4.5%.
