Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 27 November 2018
199. Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the degree to which his Department continues to monitor the performance in both the public and private sectors with a view to ensuring a reasonable degree of equality throughout the economy in terms of opportunities; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [49484/18]
View answerSustainable public finances are essential in order to ensure that Government can provide for ongoing improvements in public services and infrastructure. Total voted expenditure in 2019 will be over €66.5 billion, with over €59.2 billion allocated to current expenditure, a c. 4 per cent increase on the current expenditure provision in 2018. This will allow Government to continue to incrementally enhance the delivery of public services, including in key areas such as health and education, for the benefit of all our citizens.
Project Ireland 2040 - the National Development Plan (NDP) and the National Planning Framework (NPF) – was launched by the Government earlier this year. The NDP sets out a 10 year vision for Ireland’s public capital infrastructure priorities over the next 10 years strictly aligned with the National Strategic Outcomes for Ireland’s new spatial strategy contained in the NPF. The NDP demonstrates the Government’s commitment to meeting Ireland’s infrastructure and investment needs over the next ten years, through a total investment estimated at €116 billion. This level of capital spending will ensure ongoing employment maintenance and creation with appropriate regional development.
Project Ireland 2040 seeks to achieve ten strategic outcomes, building around the themes of wellbeing, equality and opportunity. These ten shared priorities will ensure a consistent approach between planning objectives under the NPF and investment commitments under the NDP.
Turning to budgetary reform to support delivery of equality objectives, following a commitment in the Programme for a Partnership Government to ‘develop the process of budget and policy proofing as a means of advancing equality, reducing poverty and strengthening economic and social rights’ an Equality Budgeting pilot was implemented for the 2018 budgetary cycle. The approach I have taken in introducing Equality Budgeting in Ireland is that equality budgeting is to be integrated into the existing budgetary process. Therefore, equality budgeting is contained within the existing performance budgeting framework and utilises the processes already in place.
The measures identified in the pilot related mainly to gender equality but as I outlined in my budget statement in October equality budgeting remains a priority for the coming year and I am therefore expanding the programme to further develop the gender budgeting elements, and to broaden its scope to other dimensions of equality. This expansion is being supported by an Equality Budgeting Expert Advisory Group which will bring expert knowledge on how best to progress this important work. This group is comprised of expert stakeholders such as the National Women’s Council of Ireland, IHREC, NESC, the ESRI and a number of Government Departments.
Another element in responding to the Programme for Government commitment regarding equality budgeting has been the development of a Social Impact Assessment (SIA) Framework, which is designed to focus on policy areas that cannot easily be incorporated into the existing SWITCH model, specifically the impacts of public expenditure on recipient households. The framework allows evaluators to broaden the scope of the current SIA practice to take account of not only tax and social welfare measures, but also assess how changes in public expenditure policy can impact on household outcomes and living standards.
