Capital Expenditure Programme
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-28
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Jack Chambers (FF), Dublin West

As Minister for public expenditure, I am responsible for setting the overall capital allocations across Departments and for monitoring monthly expenditure at Departmental level. As part of the budgetary process each year, my Department sets overall expenditure ceilings for each ministerial Vote group. These are laid out at Vote level in the budget day expenditure report published in October, with further detail provided in the Revised Estimates for public services published in December.
Following the allocation of each ministerial expenditure ceiling, it is a matter for Ministers to assign funding as appropriate at programme and subhead level for their Departments and for the agencies and bodies under their remit. They must account for the demands for services in different areas and regions, having regard to demographics and other relevant factors. Within this process, both current and capital expenditure are allocated on a departmental basis.
Balanced regional development is a key priority of this Government and is at the heart of the national planning framework, NPF, which sets out the overall spatial strategy for the next 20 years, along with the national development plan, NDP. Each Minister is responsible for deciding on the priority programmes and projects that will be delivered under his or her remit within the NDP and for setting out the timelines for delivery.
Since Project Ireland 2040 was first launched in 2018, the Government has overseen the delivery of many impactful NDP projects across the West. For example, in transport we have the N17-N18 Gort to Tuam project comprising 54 km of motorway and 3 km of dual carriageway; the N59 Moycullen bypass; the Salmon Weir Bridge in Galway; and the Killaloe Bypass in Clare. Other projects include the upgrade and rehabilitation of the Roscommon sewer network; the development of the Oweninny wind farm; the development of enterprise centres in Boyle and Tulsk in Roscommon and in Belmullet and Swinford in Mayo; as well as heritage and tourism projects in Portumna in Galway and Aghleam in Mayo. There have also been numerous projects delivered in the housing, education, health, and rural development sectors.
The programme for Government set out the clear prioritisation for the NDP review to ensure that investment can be maximised in the coming five years across strategic infrastructure. This includes the key energy, water and transport networks on which all future development relies.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-05-28/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-21T01:01:08+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-28