Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 27 June 2023
31. Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform to outline his Department's role in the oversight and supervision of capital delivery projects of line Departments; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31359/23]
View answerI ask the Minister to outline his Department's role in the oversight and supervision of capital delivery projects in line Departments. The Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform always had a role in overseeing the delivery of the capital projects. To make that even more clear the Department was recently renamed to specifically include the delivery of the national development plan in the name of the Department.
Will the Minister outline the exact role of the Department in ensuring the delivery of those projects?
The Government has committed to €165 billion in capital investment through the national development plan, NDP, published in 2021. As a percentage of national income, annual capital investment is now among the largest in the European Union. In 2023, almost €12 billion will fund vital infrastructure in areas such as housing, transport, education, enterprise, sport and climate action and will provide good outcomes for our people.
The national investment office, NIO, in my Department oversees and reports on Government-wide infrastructure investment under the National Development Plan 2021-2030. The NIO is also responsible for maintaining the national frameworks within which Departments operate to ensure appropriate accounting for and value for money in public capital expenditure, such as the public spending code. To answer the question on what that role looks like, it involves policy areas such as updating the capital appraisal guidelines, promoting the public spending code, overseeing the external assurance process and supporting the major project advisory group in its consideration of major projects.
The responsibility for the management and delivery of individual investment programmes within the allocations agreed under the national development plan rests with the individual Department and the individual Minister in each case. The renaming of my Department to specifically include NDP delivery has brought about a greater emphasis and mandate for the delivery of the NDP. In March, I announced a number of reforms to the public spending code, which will be replaced by a set of infrastructure guidelines aimed at enhancing project delivery for the NDP. These changes aim to reduce the administrative burden for Departments delivering capital projects while allowing them greater autonomy to pursue the delivery of their priority projects.
The Minister has outlined the role in terms of oversight but I want to ask about the Department's capacity to deliver real and meaningful oversight. We have the ongoing financial horror story of the national children's hospital and the underspending in housing during a housing crisis. The most recent figures show the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage is 26% behind profile, with some €166 million unspent this year. I note spending should have been €637 million by the end of May but only €472 million was spent. Every Department with a capital budget except for one, namely, the Department of Education, has a capital underspend, including €19 million in health, €29 million in justice and €193 million in transport. The Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform is tasked with the oversight and delivery of capital projects on behalf of the State. Does the Department have engineers, surveyors or people with technical expertise to be able to oversee capital projects and seek real accountability in delivery?
It is not the role of my Department to be providing engineers or surveyors in regard to infrastructure projects.
It is not about providing them.
I thought the Deputy asked if we had that available.
I mean having that expertise.
I am answering the question, whether it be on the matter of expertise or the personnel themselves. If we had those people, I would then face questions on duplication, given such expertise exists in the National Transport Authority, NTA, and bodies that are delivering large-scale transport infrastructure projects for the State. The role of my Department is an economic one. Our role is to evaluate the business cases for projects above a certain level, for large projects, and to give sanction or to recommend to Government regarding whether sanction should be given. Our role is also to ensure adherence to the public spending code and to sanction any changes that Departments make within their budget but to ensure they stay within their budget. We have the expertise to do that work.
That is what I am trying to get at, namely, whether the expertise and the capacity is there to test technically, as much as from an accounting perspective. I do not believe it is enough to just allocate funding to the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage or to the Department of Transport and then fail to have an oversight mechanism for the State to ensure that those Departments will be able to deliver the projects on the ground. The Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform needs to support Departments to deliver these projects through centralised expertise in project delivery, not by trying to wash its hands of it or to stand back from it.
The national investment office in the Department should be equipped to be a centre of excellence for the delivery of large capital projects that would be a resource for other Departments. My question is really about the Minister and the Department's capacity as the ultimate overseer on behalf of the State to technically and expertly probe the management of the different projects without having to resort to firms like KPMG, Deloitte, PwC and other private consulting firms. That is what I am trying to get at. Is the expertise there to do that?
Yes, the expertise is there. However, I emphasise again that it is our role to provide economic expertise and economic sanction for decisions. The Department is organised by Vote teams, and the Vote teams oversee and engage with each individual Department in huge detail. The engagement we have with them is in regard to what their spending plans are in general and, when appropriate, their spending plans by sub-Vote, that is, for individual parts of Departments. While we do have engagement with regard to projects when the projects go above a certain level, it is not the role of the Department to try to second-guess the technical expertise that might be behind an individual Department. For example, my Department does not have the expertise to be able to comment on the detail of how a school should be built but we do have the ability and it is our role to ensure that we have the funding in place to deliver against the school building commitments that we have. That is what our work is and I believe we have the expertise to do it.
