The Government intention in introducing theJobs Initiative 2011 was to focus our now more limited resources on measures that offer the greatest potential for expansion and employment creation in the domestic economy. The Jobs Initiative 2011 is one element of the Government’s wider and ongoing strategy to support economic activity. The aim is to target key sectors of the economy that can assist in getting people back to work, providing opportunities for those who have lost their jobs to re-skill and building confidence in order to encourage consumer activity. Given our commitments under the Joint EU/IMF Programme of Financial Support, and our current public finance difficulties, the Jobs Initiative 2011 was constructed to be budgetary neutral over the period to 2014. Funding of current expenditure measures announced in the Jobs Initiative is being met from a combination of re-prioritisation of existing resources and additional funding arising from the introduction of a temporary levy on pension funds. The total additional current expenditure to specified areas of €29 million in 2011 was to be funded by reallocations of €18 million from within existing current resources and €11 million from the introduction of the levy on pension funds in 2011. In a full year the total additional current expenditure to specified areas of €45 million was to be funded through €15 million of the additional expenditure from within existing resources and €30 million from the levy on pension funds.
Funding for Capital projects in theJobs Initiative provided an additional €30 million for labour intensive school works and associated works in 2011 over the existing allocation. Some €20 million of this was reallocated by the Minister for Education and Skills from within his own Department’s allocation. A further €10 million of Exchequer funding was provided to the Department from the proceeds of the new pension levy announced in the Initiative. This was allocated to “ready-to-go” projects to be delivered by schools.
The Initiative also provided for €60 million to be reallocated from within the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport's overall allocation to invest in our regional and local roads to carry out much-needed surface restoration and road reconstruction works. This important, remedial work allowed local authorities to bring forward important projects to 2011 that had previously been pushed back to 2012. A further €15 million was allocated to Smarter Travel projects.
€30 million was assigned to the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, comprising of €19 million additional Exchequer funding as well as a reallocation of €11 million from within the existing 2011 allocation, for investment in the national retrofit, home energy efficiency and renewable energy programmes.
Individual Ministers and their Departments are responsible for the roll out of these expenditure programmes and should be in a position to provide further information if requested by the Deputy. Detailed expenditure allocations for voted expenditure in 2012 and the provisional outturns for 2011 have been published in theRevised Estimates for Public Services 2012.
