The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Paschal Donohoe, T.D., today (Wednesday) welcomed Government approval for an increase of €540 million in the proposed Government Expenditure Ceiling for 2016.
Minister Donohoe said: ‘The Revised Estimates for Public Services 2016 published in December 2015, set out a gross expenditure estimate of €55.3 billion for 2016. The increase of €540 million agreed by Government today will allow for targeted increases to support the delivery of key services in the Health Sector and by An Garda Síochána. As outlined in the April Stability Programme Update increases of this order can be provided while continuing to deliver against the key fiscal targets. It will be important that Departments continue to prudently manage expenditure within the allocations now proposed for 2016’.
The 2016 Estimates are to be considered by Dáil Éireann in the coming weeks. These Estimates will reflect the extra resources to be allocated to the Department of Health and An Garda Síochána.
The Stability Programme Update, published by the Department of Finance in April 2016, outlined that it was likely that voted spending pressures amounting to c. ¼ per cent of GDP could materialise this year and that, with potential upside to the revenue projections, this level of spending pressures can be accommodated within the fiscal rules. The increase being sought in the Government Expenditure Ceiling is within these parameters set out in the Stability Programme Update.
Notes to editor:
Health
An additional €500m is to be provided to the Department of Health to deal with spending pressures, including overspends in the acute sector in the year to date, and to ensure that service levels are maintained in relation to health and social care. This substantial allocation is conditional on an improved governance and accountability framework. This will be applied with an uncompromised consistency across the acute sector in particular, with the development, for the first time, of Efficiency and Productivity Improvement Plans signed off by individual hospital CEOs and the application of Hospital Intervention Teams where needed.
Justice
An additional €40m is to be provided to An Garda Síochána to support an intensified police response to the recent spate of serious crime related violence in Dublin. The Department of Justice has also undertaken to realise savings of €15m from within existing resources to reallocate to An Garda Síochána, bringing the total additional funding package for policing to €55m.