Vol. 1086 No. 5
1. Deputy Mairéad Farrell asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation the way in which the projected overspends of his Department will impact the budgets of other Government Departments; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40817/26]
Will the Minister give us an update on the projected overspends of the Department of education and how they will impact on the budgets of other Government Departments?
What I have is a question relating to overspends in my Department, which is the wording of the question.
That was incorrect.
I will respond to it as it is written, and I am happy to engage. I know what the Deputy is raising.
That mistake was not on my side.
The latest fiscal monitor published on 6 May showed that the end of April gross voted expenditure amounted to €36 billion. This is a €2.9 billion or 8.9% increase compared with April 2025 and reflects the implementation of the priorities set out in budget 2026, and the significant uplift in expenditure to support programme for Government commitments. Compared with the profiles set out by Departments for their planned spending over the year, this was €0.6 billion or 1.8% below profile.
For my Department’s Vote, end of April gross expenditure of €593 million was €39 million or 6.2% behind the profile set out. The public expenditure group comprises eight Votes, which are my Department, superannuation and retired allowances, the Office of Public Works, the State Laboratory, secret service, Public Appointments Service, shared services office and the Office of the Ombudsman. None of these were over profile at the end of April. Ensuring that public money is spent efficiently and that taxpayers see clear outputs and outcomes from public spending is a core priority for my Department and for Government. The Government agreed a medium-term fiscal structural plan in December last year. It sets out expenditure ceilings to 2030 and provides significant uplifts in expenditure over the coming years, with gross voted spending to reach €147.3 billion by 2030. In April, Government agreed that additional funding of €646 million will be provided to the Department of Education and Youth in 2026. To accommodate this reprioritisation and to deliver on the 2027 ceiling agreed under the medium-term fiscal plan, other Departments have been asked to deliver a levy focusing on efficiencies and reforms, which will total €446 million from 2027. This should be considered through the lens of an overall uplift of €7 billion for expenditure in 2027. It will not impact the 2026 allocations.
The delivery of reforms and efficiencies supports adherence-----
Deputy Farrell to respond.
That was not the question I submitted, but I understand it is what the Minister has been told. I do not know if we should skip this question. I might just ask my question and if the Minister cannot answer it is not on him, which is totally fine. I accept that he was not aware. It is a bit of a mess, like this mess. My question relates to overspends in the Department of education and specifically how this will impact on other Government Departments, including Transport, justice and housing. My concern is that this will leave communities worse off in the long run, which is something we do not want to happen. My core question really concerns what looks likely to be cut. Of what those Departments felt was so important to get funding for on budget day, what is no longer deemed necessary? I am aware the Minister was not aware of the question.
The wording of the question is as it is printed on the question paper, which I have to respond to factually.
I know.
I am happy to respond to the question on education that was raised at the budgetary oversight committee too. First, it is being done in the context of the Estimates process for budget 2027. Transport is at 1.4%. Housing is at 0.1% and justice is at 0.7%. We have specifically provided a carve-out for housing for obvious reasons and similarly for justice pay so we do not affect front-line areas. This is obviously in the context of a growing budget. I see this differently, through the lens of driving efficiencies, advancing reforms and enhancing productivity across these areas of public expenditure. I think we can improve outputs in the context of an efficiency and expenditure levy. New priorities emerge in the context of expenditure and that is why we were right to provide that additional funding to the Department of education. That is within a new and agreed fiscal framework. In the context of budget 2027 we will engage with the Departments through the Estimates process. However, each of them has an objective now to drive those efficiencies across these respective areas.
To be clear, the question the Minister received is not the question I was asking. I thank him for the answer, but the issue is that if you look at it in the context of what he is saying here and what is being done, things do not really add up. In January, the Minister said that the Government's massive expenditure on consultancy services was adding cost, delay and significant fragmentation to infrastructure delivery. However, we now hear he is spending €25,000 on a consultancy firm to try to garner public support for his infrastructure plan, all against the backdrop of cutting spending across other Departments. It seems like cuts for everybody except the Minister's Department. If the Minister wants to run an advertising campaign, he should use the policies he has. I do not understand spending €25,000 on a consultancy firm. Does the Minister think his Department should be spending €25,000 on a marketing campaign?
The Deputy is misrepresenting what that is. It is independent research and analysis to advance the objectives set out in the accelerating infrastructure report where there are three or four recommendations or actions in respect of driving public acceptance of infrastructure in the country. It is important because that is an issue across communities where people have concerns. It is about how we build better public acceptance of that. They are doing a piece of work in that context. When you take a €275 billion infrastructure plan over ten years, it is important that we implement those recommendations and actions in the context of the evidence base being built out. In the context of the efficiency levy, it is important that all Government Departments, in as much as they are looking for more, also drive a greater focus on efficiencies and reforms. That is what we are seeking to do across government and that is why we are doing it in a context of the levy we have introduced.
2. Deputy Cian O'Callaghan asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation the action he has taken to protect public service provision in light of recent levies put on other Departments to make up for overspends in the Department of Education and Youth; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40991/26]
My question is related and asks the Minister what he is doing to protect public service provision in light of the levies he has put on other Departments. We keep hearing about efficiencies and reform, and we are all for that, but it is quite vague. There has been strong criticism of his budgetary process from the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council. Has he taken on board its criticisms and what changes will he make in light of that?
The Government agreed a medium-term fiscal structural plan in December last year. This sets out expenditure ceilings for the period to 2030. It provides significant uplifts in expenditure over the coming years, with gross voted spending to reach €147.3 billion in 2030. As set out in the plan, the ceiling for 2027 will increase to €125.5 billion. This is an uplift of €7 billion over the 2026 expenditure ceiling of €118.5 billion. Delivery of the plan over the medium-term horizon will require enhanced expenditure control, reducing and avoiding in-year decisions with carryover costs for subsequent years and robust oversight mechanisms. In April, Government agreed that additional funding of €646 million will be provided to the Department of Education and Youth in 2026. To accommodate this reprioritisation and deliver on the 2027 ceiling agreed under the plan, a levy has been introduced across other Departments, which have been asked to deliver efficiencies and reforms totalling €446 million from 2027. This should be considered through the lens of an overall uplift of €7 billion for expenditure in 2027 and will not impact 2026 allocations. The delivery of reforms and efficiencies supports adherence to the expenditure ceilings set out in our plan. It reflects the need to moderate the rate of expenditure growth across Departments to facilitate the decision to reprioritise and provide additional investment to the education sector within our wider fiscal framework out to 2030. The scale of the efficiencies to be found ranges from 0.02% to 1.4% on the 2026 current funding across all other Vote groups. The distribution of the levy has been designed to protect certain areas, which are the social protection Vote group non-pay allocation, Department of Health pay allocation, the specialist disability services subhead in the Department of Children, Disability and Equality, the Justice, Home affairs and Migration group pay, Housing, Local Government and Heritage group non-pay and pension funding across all Votes.
My Department wrote to Secretaries General following the Government decision, informing them of the need to identify efficiencies and reforms, and that this would form a key element of the Estimates engagement for budget 2027. Each Department will now have to determine how the levy will be applied across the Vote group and identify the efficiencies and reforms required to ensure this.
I appreciate that, but this is what the Minister has been saying publicly for the past number of weeks. What I am seeking to address with him is strong criticism of him and his Department in terms of their budget allocation process.
For example, the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council points out that the Minister's Department got the allocations and estimations in terms of what we would spend on doctors and nurses in the last three months of last year wrong and that every year his Department does not base its budget allocations on what was spent the year before and often reducing them back to an unrealistic level. The council said:
The budgetary allocation was too low from the start. Delivering planned services on budget becomes nearly impossible if funding was never sufficient. That responsibility lies with the Department of Public Expenditure.
It went on to accuse the Minister and his Department of "bad budgeting". The Irish Fiscal Advisory Council doing that is very serious, so what is the Minister doing to address this? The council made recommendations to him on what he should do. Are he and his Department listening to the council and taking what it says on board? Are he and his Department going to change their process or will they continue to just blame the Departments when the independent body is clearly saying the responsibility lies with them?
We take everything the council says seriously in the context of its independent role. I am also conscious of what it says on the medium- to long-term horizon about how we manage overall expenditure to ensure it is on a safe and sustainable path. I do not think the council is arguing for a much bigger overall allocation. The Deputy is giving one side and reflecting one side in that context. On the Department of education, the allocation going into 2026 was a 10% allocation, which was far in excess of the overall expenditure growth rate, because of the need to respond to the specific necessities around education within our society, and Government prioritised that over other areas. When it comes to the Department of Health, it is on the back of exponential growth in health expenditure in recent years. There is a need in that Department, and indeed in other Departments, to focus on how we can improve the overall outputs, efficiencies and reforms in the context of the growth in spending in the last five years so we can achieve our overall ambition and objective, which is to moderate current expenditure so we can have the fiscal space to ramp up investment in infrastructure.
I thank the Minister. What we are lacking here is any clear information from him or the other Ministers about what is actually going on, why this is happening, what he and his Department are going to do correct it in terms of their budgeting process and where these savings, efficiencies and reforms are going to come about. A senior economist at the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council said:
A better and more transparent approach would be to:
Estimate the cost of existing services based on actual year-to-date spending—not original allocations, as is the current approach
Publish estimates of the change in cost of existing services, decomposed into its causes: demographics, pay, and price pressures [Then we would have transparency around this.]
Only then, set and publish estimates of savings targets (following negotiation) ...
The economist has given very specific advice on what the Minister and his Department need to do to correct this. We need that information and that transparency, so why are the Minister and his Department not providing it? Why is it just the same talk of how we are doing levies, efficiencies and reforms? We do not know what that means, what impact it is going to have and what the Minister and his Department are actually doing to get under the bonnet to fix this budgeting process.
What we did very seriously in budget 2026 is ensure most Government Departments are within profile and that their allocation is successfully delivering across what was set out in the budgetary context. The issue with what the Deputy has presented is just taking ELS as it is today and saying you are going to add more avoids the need to drive efficiencies within the current base of spending and the need to drive reforms within the current base of spending so we improve the qualitative outputs that come from that. By just looking at-----
Nurses' and teachers' pay is fixed though.
Looking for just additionality in the context of a current expenditure track for a particular policy area does not allow for an overall better evaluation of how we can get more for the current base of spend. That is how we have changed how we have approached overall expenditure policy. We are looking at the total expenditure rather than just looking at ELS and adding more. In the medium term that will improve the overall sustainability of our expenditure-----
It will not drive down wage growth.
-----but also improve efficiencies and strengthen the focus on reform. That is my priority in the months ahead.
3. Deputy Mairéad Farrell asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation if he will report on his visit to the Bilderberg conference in Washington DC in April 2026; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40659/26]
I thank Deputy Farrell. The annual Bilderberg conference is a forum to foster dialogue between Europe and North America on major issues facing the world, with attendees from industry, finance, government, academia and the media. The meeting was first held in 1954 and has been regularly attended by Irish Government Ministers on many occasions in recent years.
I was invited and attended this year’s event, held in April 2026, in my capacity as Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation. This year’s meeting was held in Washington DC and the agenda included a variety of topics such as AI, Arctic security, digital finance, energy diversification, Europe, global trade and the Middle East. While in Washington I also met the US Chamber of Commerce. Both engagements and events provide an important opportunity to engage with the international political and business community on Ireland’s foreign direct investment potential. IDA Ireland reported that in 2025 a record 323 investments, which was a 38% increase over 2024, were achieved and this is expected to create over 15,300 new jobs. Total employment in IDA-supported firms reached a new high of over 312,400 people last year. This underscores the economic value of FDI and engagement with the international community.
There is additional information about the event on the official Bilderberg website, which includes information on the organisation’s history, governance, steering committee, meetings, agendas, attendees and press releases.
The issue here is that in the spirit of the Bilderberg conference, which is a secretive conference, the Minister has not given me a full breakdown of exactly what he did and what he was discussing. It is only through a freedom of information request we have an insight into what he got up to. We also need to see it in the context of the time. When fuel protestors were out on the streets demanding the Minister's Government intervene just so they could make ends meet he was in Washington DC spending $760 a night of taxpayers' money on a luxury five-star hotel. While working families up and down the State were unable to afford to fill their tanks with fuel he was spending money on business class flights to the tune of thousands of euro and in total the trip cost the taxpayer €6,800. During a cost-of-living crisis why on Earth should taxpayers fund that type of trip while still not being aware of exactly what was being discussed?
The Deputy and her party fully understand, in the context of the party's participation in the Executive in the North, the importance of international engagement, foreign direct investment and engagement with the business community. As I said, the role in the context of the attendance at Bilderberg and meeting the US Chamber of Commerce is always to promote Ireland, to engage with many people who invest here and also political leaders in Europe and elsewhere. It is important, as an open, trading economy that we do that. I fully participated in the Cabinet meeting held on Sunday which obviously had advanced the discussions relating to our response and the important interventions we made. The Deputy's approach here, in undermining international engagement, is not fair.
I did not ask the Minister about his discussions with the US Chamber of Commerce. I asked him specifically about the Bilderberg conference. The focus on militarisation was absolutely clear from the agenda, which included discussions on the transatlantic defence industrial relationship, the Middle East and the future of warfare. As he is the Minister for public expenditure I find it concerning he would foster a close relationship with bosses of military companies, which is not in our national interest. I am concerned about the threat to our neutrality from this Government. The Minister will know there are no minutes or media coverage recording what was discussed in these sessions, so I would like to know what was discussed. The public paid nearly €7,000 for this trip and we have a right to know exactly what sessions the Minister attended, who he met and what he discussed.
All the attendees at the conference are published on the Bilderberg website, as is the specific agenda across many topics. As I have said it was AI, Arctic security, digital finance, energy diversification, Europe, global trade and the Middle East. It is attended by public representatives - members of government - from parts of Europe and the US, industry leaders and also by members of the media. The wider organisation's meeting agenda, respective press releases and what is discussed are set out. It has been attended by many members of Irish Governments in the past. As I said, it is important, as an open, trading economy that we engage with business leaders and members of government from across the world. It provides an important forum to do that.
4. Deputy Mairéad Farrell asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation to provide an update on overpayments made by the NSSO to former Government Ministers; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41064/26]
Have all former Ministers either paid any money owed or set up repayment plans with the NSSO with regard to the pensions overpayment issue?
The National Shared Services Office, NSSO, a body under the aegis of the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, provides HR, pension, payroll and finance shared services to Government Departments and offices. As part of its remit, it transacts HR, payroll, pension and finance administration for public and civil servants on behalf of 54 client public service bodies.
In relation to pension and additional superannuation contribution, ASC, contributions for Ministers, Ministers of State, former Ministers and officeholders, a review into the application of the relevant pension schemes and additional superannuation contribution rates was carried out by the NSSO. The review identified 82 individuals where there was an under-deduction or over-deduction of pension and-or additional superannuation contribution. The NSSO has reached agreement with all current Ministers and Ministers of State in relation to payment of pension contributions due. Agreement has also been reached with the majority of former Ministers and other officeholders impacted by the review.
The NSSO is fully committed to ensuring that all moneys owed to the State are fully recouped, with 83% of the moneys owed now paid or in an agreed recoupment plan. It has informed me that there are a small number of outstanding cases where those impacted have yet to commit to a recoupment plan. Engagement is ongoing, with the latest correspondence issued from the NSSO this month.
These matters related to pension and ASC contributions and, in cases such as these, the NSSO adopts a consistent process of engagement to ensure the moneys owed are recovered. The NSSO works with each individual to address the error identified. An independent external audit of the NSSO retirement and pension processes is being overseen by the chair of the advisory board of the NSSO, and I have been told it is nearing completion.
To be honest, I assumed the Minister was going to tell me that they had all engaged in a repayment plan. Am I correct that 17% have not engaged in a recoupment plan? I have raised this with the Minister numerous times, and I know he is in agreement with me. However, it is outrageous that 17% would not engage in a recoupment plan. This is a time when, as we were just discussing, people are struggling to make ends meet. Ordinary workers who go out and work every day of their lives cannot pay their bills or their rent. We now have a situation where former Ministers did not engage in a recoupment plan to pay money back into the State coffers, when they know this is the middle of a cost of living crisis and they know they were not due this money. We have been talking about this for months on end. I find it shocking. I genuinely thought the Minister was going to tell me they had all engaged in that recoupment plan.
As the Deputy knows, given its remit, the wider work of the NSSO is done independently of me. I am not aware of who the current or former Ministers are. The NSSO is trying to progress the remaining number. They all should and must enter into a repayment plan. The NSSO said that the latest correspondence has issued this month. There needs to be full repayment, and I have said that consistently. All current Ministers and Ministers of State have entered into a repayment plan or have fully repaid it, or have been repaid themselves where there was an over-deduction in certain instances. It is important that the remaining number of former Ministers and Ministers of State enter into a repayment plan. I know the NSSO is determined to do that. I am not privy to the correspondence with specific individuals, except to say that the NSSO is progressing work to ensure that people enter specific plans.
Is the Minister aware of how many former Ministers are in that 17%? My God, this has to undermine public trust and public confidence. If anybody is overpaid anything, they are pursued with legal letters and threatening letters when these things happen through no fault of their own. They are pursued very quickly and in a very difficult way for many people who are not used to dealing with this. We are talking about people who were in a position of power, making decisions over other people’s lives, who now feel they are a class to themselves, and who feel they do not need to engage in the recouping of this money. I understand that the Minister is not aware of each individual case, and that it is done in an independent way. However, can the Minister tell us how many people are involved? This means it is going to be difficult to maintain essential public confidence in public life.
The total number of individuals was 82, which included current and former Ministers of State, officeholders and a small number of civil servants. Some 17% of that is what remains. We know that the cohort relating to current Ministers has been accounted for. I do not have the specifics. What I have been told is that the aggregate miscalculation was €359,000, and that 17%, or €62,000, remains. The vast majority of what was owed has been repaid or is in a recoupment plan. Of the 82 cases identified, 63 are now closed. The NSSO is repeatedly finalising this. Although I do not know, there may be individuals who are getting advice or getting it checked to see what is owed. I do not know the specific interactions that are ongoing because I am not familiar with the individuals, and it is confidential information for any individual. I know the policy and direction of the NSSO is to ensure that where anyone owes anything to the State where there has been an under-deduction, that is fully repaid. It is pursuing and engaging with all of the individuals with respect to that.
