I move the following Further Revised Estimate: Vote 26 — Education and Youth (Further Revised Estimate) That a sum not exceeding €13,642,152,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 2026, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Minister for Education and Youth, for certain services administered by that Office, and for the payments of certain grants.

In response to Senator Boyhan, I regret that I will be continuing that trend with regard to this amendment. I apologise for that. I thank Senator Murphy for the amendment, although I will not be accepting it. I have been consistently clear that my central priority is to accelerate the delivery of critical infrastructure and specifically infrastructure in the energy, transport and water sectors. I focus specifically on these areas because they form the foundation on which all other social and economic infrastructure…

I am not accepting these amendments. The draft legislation outlines the process by which individual projects or programmes will be designated as critical infrastructure. While I and future Ministers for public expenditure will make recommendations to Government regarding projects that may be designated, no project or programme will be eligible for the fast-track process set out in the Bill without a Government decision. In addition, as part of the designation process there is a mechanism in place allowing Dáil Éire…

That is not what I meant-----

I thank Senator Murphy for the amendment. I am not accepting it. While I agree in principle that authorisation processes should be subject to clear timelines, I do not believe it would be appropriate for me as Minister to prescribe the specific timeline required in the context of this legislation for every individual authorisation process. I will set out why. If such a requirement were imposed by my Department, we would run the risk of conflicting with existing sectoral-specific legislation which already exists in …

I thank all Senators for their contributions. I am not accepting these amendments. The power to issue directions to relevant public bodies in relation to those programmes and projects that are designated as critical infrastructure is an important mechanism in the overall process. It will allow the Minister for public expenditure to intervene where the framework for accelerated decision making is not being implemented. Crucially, however, this intervention can only be for the purposes of ensuring that public bodies …

I thank the Senators for their contributions. As I outlined on Second Stage in this House, I firmly believe that, if we are serious about accelerating Ireland's critical infrastructure, the disapplication of section 15 of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015 is necessary. There has been a great deal of misinformation about the purpose and impact of this change. The amendment is included in the Bill because recent precedent has made it clear that the courts have interpreted section 15 in a manner t…

While I accept the Senator's perspective on the matter, there are issues in Sligo and the north west. A judicial review was taken in respect of the ring road in Galway that related to climate legislation. We have to remove legal avenues that are bringing uncertainty to projects that are hugely important for the west. We have ambitions to do more in the context of public transport and low carbon transport but the Senator knows from Sligo, there are important road projects that are hugely important for regional conne…

I thank the Senator for her amendment. I agree with the broader sentiment of the amendment. Work is already under way within the Department and across the regulatory system. I do not, therefore, accept this amendment because of the work which I will describe. In February of this year, I stood up an infrastructure regulatory simplification unit in my Department. The unit is working with regulators across the system to streamline permitting processes, with a particular focus on critical infrastructure. This work has …

Amendment No. 9 seeks to require a report to be laid before the Dáil, within six months of the passage of this legislation, on the potential impacts of introducing a net contribution clause to public construction contracts. I do not propose to accept this amendment, first, because the focus of the Bill is the designation and fast-tracking of critical infrastructure projects and programmes to existing authorisation processes; it does not extend to construction or procurement matters. More pertinently, however, I bel…

What I have is a question relating to overspends in my Department, which is the wording of the question.

I will respond to it as it is written, and I am happy to engage. I know what the Deputy is raising.

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 …

The wording of the question is as it is printed on the question paper, which I have to respond to factually.

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, adv…

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 infra…

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 con…

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 exp…

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 …

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-----