Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 19 Jun 2002

Vol. 553 No. 3

Written Answers. - Public Expenditure.

Richard Bruton

Ceist:

62 Mr. R. Bruton asked the Minister for Finance the public expenditure in the first six months of 2002; the way in which this compares with the first six months of 2001 under each major expenditure programme; and the way in which this compares with the outturn of 2001 and the budgeted expenditure in 2002. [14093/02]

Minister for Finance (Mr. McCreevy)

My reply relates to expenditure to the end of May as information to the end of June will not be available for a fortnight.

Table 1 – Total ministerial vote group spending to the end of May 2002 in comparison with the end of May 2001

Ministerial Vote Group(net voted total spending)*	Spending to May 2002	Spending to May 2001	Per cent increase
	€000	€000	%

Taoiseach	55,525	43,850	27
Finance	355,132	324,424	9
Justice, Equality and Law Reform	646,338	538,963	20
Environment and Local Government	1,056,070	724,257	46
Education and Science	2,002,902	1,603,650	25
Marine and Natural Resources	63,734	56,811	12
Agriculture, Food and Rural Development	410,003	237,327	73
Public Enterprise	199,285	142,041	40
Health and Children	3,064,530	2,377,371	29
Enterprise, Trade and Employment	432,964	485,859	11
Tourism, Sport and Recreation	122,642	79,639	54
Defence	308,039	307,971	–
Foreign Affairs	234,853	168,791	39
Social, Community and Family Affairs	2,039,020	1,512,206	35
Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands	126,228	138,424	9
Total	11,117,265	8,741,555	27

*The vote groups listed do not take account of the name and functional changes recently announced by the Taoiseach.

Table 2 sets out the comparison between the 2001 provisional outturn and the budgeted expen diture in 2002, that is, the allocations set out in the Revised Estimates.

Table 2 – 2002 REV spending in comparison with 2001 provisional outturn

(by Ministerial vote group)

Ministerial Vote Group(net voted total spending)*	REV 2002**	2001 Outturn	Per cent increase
	€000	€000	%

Taoiseach	155,322	119,525	30
Finance	1,098,040	986,983	11
Justice, Equality and Law Reform	1,582,648	1,456,176	9
Environment and Local Government	3,423,713	3,134,984	9
Education and Science	5,194,368	4,670,472	11
Marine and Natural Resources	248,825	213,046	17
Agriculture, Food and Rural Development	944,523	1,071,662	12
Public Enterprise	829,403	738,457	12
Health and Children	6,991,861	5,991,424	17
Enterprise, Trade and Employment	1,128,868	1,045,557	8
Tourism, Sport and Recreation	306,630	260,963	17
Defence	890,160	834,715	7
Foreign Affairs	544,105	376,253	45
Social Community and Family Affairs	5,129,878	4,105,917	25
Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands	376,059	347,609	8
Total	28,844,853	25,353,743	14

*The vote groups listed do not take account of the name and functional changes recently announced by the Taoiseach.

**Excluding the unallocated provision of €150 million for benchmarking.

The year-on-year spending increase of 27% shown at the end of May exceeded the annual increase of 14% provided in the Estimates. Year-on-year percentage increases during the early part of the year are affected by a variety of factors such as the timing of payments this year, the level of spending in the corresponding period last year and the absolute size of the figures being compared.

Spending to date is less than profiled by Departments and offices. Also 41% of the total allocation has been spent which is to be expected if there is an even pattern of spending throughout the year.