2026-02-12

5. Deputy Richard O'Donoghue asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation the reason figures for existing levels of service, ELS, were not included in the budget 2026 documentation; the plans for these to be provided in detail in budgetary documentation going forward, considering recommendations from the Oireachtas Committee on Budgetary Oversight; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11621/26]

Each year the expenditure report seeks to improve on previous iterations to refine and improve the approach used to present budget day figures. The expenditure report for 2026 provides a more detailed description of the budget package components than in previous years, in the table set out on page 12. There have been many alternative approaches in the past and work on the best way to present each year's budget will be an iterative process. The approach taken to the budget 2026 differs from previous years and therefore cannot be compared on a like-for-like basis. The information is no longer available in the format used in recent years as the budget estimates for 2026 have been constructed in a different way to previous years' budgets. This was undertaken to better reflect the totality of expenditure, where this funding is being invested and what is being delivered for our growing population. This approach placed a greater emphasis on reform, efficiency and placing value for money at the centre of government decision-making. It allows for more focus on the total size of the overall expenditure ceiling. The 2026 expenditure report provides a more detailed breakdown of the budget package than in previous years, as shown in the reconciliation table provided on page 12. The overall uplift for 2026 is allocated across the following categories: €900 million for increased recipients of public services in social protection, childcare, disability and housing; €2.2 billion for key policy adjustments and expansion of services, including welfare measures, education and youth reforms, increased apprenticeship places and supports for public transport; €1.1 billion to meet the 2026 cost of decisions taken in 2025, such as the roll-out of pay-related benefit, auto-enrolment and additional PSO transport supports; €1.2 billion for the cost of the public sector pay agreement; €1.4 billion reflecting ongoing scheme costs, additional staff recruitment and programme-specific funding across a number of areas; €2.1 billion; and €300 million unallocated, to be assigned later as required, consistent with previous years. A range of sources of information relating to the budget are published throughout the year. The expenditure report on budget day summarises the programmes. The Revised Estimates Volume follows the budget and provides additional details and information on spending plans. The fiscal monitor each month provides year-to-date spending figures for each Vote group. This compares them against the profiles set out by Departments and against the previous year. The public service performance report details how Departments performed against targets set in the Revised Estimates process. I have more I can set out.

The budgetary oversight committee is great and we have a diverse range of people on it. The one thing we want to see is accountability. We want to be able to see forecasting. The job of the committee is to go back year by year and see where moneys are being spent and where the delivery is. Looking at the Departments, if I ran my business the way the Government runs its business I would not be in business. We want to see the delivery of the funds the Minister has named and all the millions he has listed to see that we get delivery on budget and on time. What I have seen to date is that we have seen a lot of moneys spent but we are not getting the delivery. If you compare it with business models we are not getting the same results. Those businesses make profits out of their work but the Government cannot deliver in the same way businesses can. I need to try to address that.

To take the Deputy's business model analogy, businesses do not do ELS as he has sought in his question. Businesses look at the totality of expenditure and to drive better delivery, better outputs and better efficiency in terms of the totality of spend. That is exactly what we are seeking to do in how we framed and delivered budget 2026. That is where the weaknesses of existing levels of service are identified and we now focus on the totality of expenditure rather than only the incremental budget package, which has been the nature of it in previous years. That places reform, efficiency and value for money at the centre of decisions we make and shifts the emphasis from the expenditure level towards what policies are being advanced, what services are being delivered and how funding supports a growing population. That is where, in terms of the ELS, there is an inconsistency across Votes. Just sitting additional expenditure above a system that might be inefficient in a particular expenditure area does not address the need to better link output. What we are trying to do and how we have changed the expenditure approach is to extract better outputs around how we manage the totality of expenditure, aligned with the point the Deputy has made.

I understand what the Minister is trying to do and I take in the context of what he is saying. There is better forecasting - that is probably the word I am looking for. However, look at the children's hospital where we have gone €1.2 billion over budget. Now I hear we are looking to take a legal challenge against the contractors for not finishing the job. The problem here is not the contractors but the contract and how it was set out on the first day, through the Departments. Every year that goes on, the regulation changes. It is an ongoing issue. From the point of view of the delivery of infrastructure such as that hospital - which is becoming a white elephant and I wonder whether it will ever be finished - how can the Minister budget for that within his Department of infrastructure? It is €1.2 billion over budget. Where would that go to deliver a lot of the services out there? I want accountability not only for the developer but also for the Departments and how they deliver for the Minister and the people.

That is obviously a separate issue to the existing levels of service in the Deputy's question. What we have set out is a new national development plan and a new way of delivering infrastructure in the economy. We have a series of reforms we are advancing through 2026 which are about accelerating wider delivery but also responding to the evidence, which is there, that too many of the systems are cumbersome, slow and duplicative in many instances. This has impacted delivery on water, energy, transport and the wider social and economic infrastructure of the State. Of course we have had reports published on overspends and the children's hospital and there have been learnings from that for the Department of Health. Reforms have been made to mitigate the risk of such an example arising in future. Obviously that is a separate and distinct issue from the existing levels of service, but we are seeking to deliver more infrastructure and to speed that up because the time spent in a process-driven approach has a cost and we are trying to bring a broader rebalancing to get projects moving.