Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 8 May 2019
204. Deputy Pearse Doherty asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the amount of unallocated expenditure in each of the years 2020 to 2024 or the latest date in tabular form; and if this unallocated expenditure is already included within the general government balance baseline for each of these years. [19645/19]
Amharc ar fhreagra205. Deputy Pearse Doherty asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if the approximately €300 million and €720 million of unallocated expenditure for 2020 and 2021, respectively, listed in the 2019 expenditure report is already factored into the general government baseline such that its removal would improve the general Government balance by the figures cited in each year. [19646/19]
Amharc ar fhreagraI propose to take Questions Nos. 204 and 205 together.
Table 6 on page 42 of Expenditure Report 2019 sets out Ministerial Current Expenditure Ceilings out to 2021. Included within these ceilings are the estimated costs of meeting demographic pressures and the Public Service Stability Agreement. This Table shows an amount of unallocated resources of €0.61 billion for 2020 and €0.72 billion for 2021.
In addition, an estimated cost of €0.31 billion is set out in the Expenditure Report for carryover costs of certain Budget 2019 current expenditure measures in 2020. As these carryover estimates relate to measures being implemented in 2019, they will be impacted by the actual cost and timing of implementation during the year. Consequently, the estimated costs are to be reassessed during 2019 as the measures are implemented. As outlined in Expenditure Report 2019, in the absence of any re-prioritisation of expenditure identified during the Estimates process, these costs will need to be met from the remaining unallocated resources. Consequently, Table 9 of Expenditure Report 2019 includes these carryover costs in arriving at the resources to be allocated in 2020 of €0.3 billion.
The recently published Stability Programme Update (SPU) sets out the overall increases in gross voted expenditure out to 2023. The full amount of the expenditure increases, whether unallocated or allocated towards pre-commitments such as demographics are already factored into the General Government Balance for the period out to 2023. While Ministerial Current Expenditure Ceilings are not published beyond 2021 a proportion of the increase for both 2022 and 2023 relates to demographic costs, which are included in the relevant General Government expenditure categories of Table 10 of the SPU. Once demographics are accounted for, there are unallocated resources of approximately €1.1 billion for both 2022 and 2023. These figures are presented cumulatively in the SPU and are broken down in the table below for the period 2020 to 2023. These annual amounts of unallocated resources set out below cumulate to €3.57 billion by 2023.
|
2020 |
2021 |
2022 |
2023 |
|
|
€bn |
€bn |
€bn |
€bn |
|
|
Y-oY Increase in Gross Voted Current Expenditure |
1.45 |
1.44 |
1.56 |
1.60 |
|
of which Demographics |
0.45 |
0.46 |
0.46 |
0.46 |
|
PSSA |
0.39 |
0.26 |
- |
- |
|
Resources to be Allocated before carryover costs* |
0.61 |
0.72 |
1.10 |
1.14 |
*As outlined above, in the absence of reprioritisation, there is an estimated amount of €0.31 billion in carryover costs that would need to be met from the 2020 resources to be allocated. Including these carryover costs, the estimated current expenditure pre-commitments for 2020 are €1.15 billion.
