Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 16 January 2013
1144. Deputy Timmy Dooley asked the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the amount it costs to run his Department; if he will quantify the savings in his Department when some of its duties were transferred to the new authority; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [58185/12]
View answerI refer the Deputy to my response to his Question No. 1213 of 6 November 2012. The position remains unchanged. The cost of running the National Transport Authority (NTA) is an operational matter for the Authority. As previously advised, I have referred the Deputy's question to it for direct reply. As also advised, my Department's 2012 expenditure allocation and 2011 provisional expenditure outturn are set out in the Revised Estimates Volume, Vote 31 which is published by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and is available on that Department's website. For the Deputy's information, the allocation in 2012 from the Exchequer to the NTA is €376,985,000 (€246,747,000 for current expenditure and €130,238,000 for capital expenditure) and the provisional expenditure outturn for 2011 was €376,985,000 (€269,348,000 for current expenditure and €211,000,000 for capital expenditure). The NTA has assumed responsibility for a range of tasks from my Department, including national bus route licensing, rail passenger rights redress, integrated ticketing, the rural transport programme, public service contracts with the CIÉ companies and the management of the State’s infrastructure contract with Irish Rail. To resource this remit, a number of staff posts were transferred from my Department’s allocation to the NTA. The associated pay allocations are adjusted to reflect the transfer of posts to the NTA. Consequently, there are no net savings in my Department's vote as a result of the transfer of functions. However, it should be noted that the rationale for the creation of the NTA was not to generate cost savings. It should also be noted that much of the work done by the NTA is new work which was not previously done by my Department.
