I move:
That Dáil Éireann approves the following Order in draft:
Finance Act 2004 (Section 91) (Deferred Surrender to the Central Fund) Order 2016,
copies of which have been laid in draft form before Dáil Éireann on 15th January, 2016.
The ministerial order, which is before Dáil Éireann, is a technical instrument. Its purpose is to allow the Dáil to approve formally the expenditure by Departments and agencies in the current financial year of capital moneys carried over from the previous year. The multi-annual system is designed to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the management by Departments and agencies of capital programmes and projects.
It recognises the difficulties inherent in the planning and profiling of capital expenditure and acknowledges that, for a myriad of reasons, capital projects may be subject to delays. The carryover facility allows for a portion of unspent moneys, which would have been lost to the capital programmes and projects concerned under the annual system of allocating capital, to be made available for spending on programme priorities in the subsequent year.
As I said, this is a technical exercise. The Exchequer and Audit Departments Act 1866, generally requires the surrender of unspent Exchequer moneys to the Central Fund at the end of each financial year. However, section 91 of the Finance Act 2004, which gives legal effect to capital carryover, allows the carryover of unspent voted Exchequer capital to the following year of up to 10% of capital by Vote, by deferring this surrender requirement, subject to certain conditions.
Among those conditions are that the amounts of capital carried over by each Vote be specified in the annual Appropriation Act of the year from which the carryover is proposed. The actual decision in principle on the amounts of carryover by Vote is therefore made in the Appropriation Act, which we debated last month. The Dáil again has the opportunity to endorse the amounts in its decision on the Revised Estimates Volume which shows the capital carryover amounts separately in the relevant Votes.
The carryover amounts provided for in the Appropriation Act are required to be confirmed in an order to be made by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform by 31 March of the following year, after approval of the order by the Dáil, to allow expenditure to take place. The order sets out the amounts by subhead consistent with the amount by Vote specified in the Appropriation Act. Capital carryover within a Vote does not have to be spent on the same subhead or programme where the saving occurred. It may be spent on a different programme depending on progress and priorities.
The order we are discussing today sets out where Departments and agencies propose to spend the capital carryover amounts specified by Vote in the Appropriation Act 2015. The total amount proposed in the draft order for 2016 is €111.8 million or 2.9% of the 2015 expected outturn. The total 2016 gross Exchequer capital provision allocated in budget 2016 amounts to €3.8 billion. The capital carryover of €111.8 million will bring the total Exchequer capital available for spending in 2016 to over €3.9 billion, and allow projects to proceed in a number of Departments.
Departments and agencies have delegated responsibility to manage their capital programmes and projects within the terms of the delegated capital sanction as set down by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. The availability of these capital carryover amounts in 2016 will assist them within this framework in tackling economic and social infrastructural priorities in their respective areas.
I commend the order to the House, as it will allow Departments and agencies to get on with the business of spending capital that the House has already allocated to deliver much-needed projects.