I move: "That the Bill be now read a second time." I am pleased to introduce the Appropriation Bill. The Bill is an important annual financial legislative instrument which must be enacted before the end of the year in order to give effect to the authorisation of voted expenditure through 2025 and to allow for the continuation of expenditure into 2026. The Bill has two primary functions. The first is to provide legal authorisation for all the expenditure that occurred in 2025 on the basis of the Estimates voted on by the Dáil over the year. These allocations are known as the amounts to be appropriated for the supply of services. They are set out in section 2 and Schedule 1. They relate to the Revised Estimates, Further Revised Estimates and Supplementary Estimates that have been agreed by the Dáil over the course of 2025. In net terms, these Estimates amount to €91.5 billion. In gross terms and taking into account expenditure on the Social Insurance Fund and National Training Fund, total gross voted expenditure allocated for this year is €109.9 billion. This reflects the Government's investment in public services, delivering on the priorities we set out in budget 2025, including higher weekly social protection payments, targeted investments in areas such as health and transformational investment in infrastructure to unlock growth, enhance competitiveness and support communities all over the country under the revised national development plan. Our social protection system seeks to provide an effective social safety net for the more vulnerable members of our society. When expenditure on the Social Insurance Fund is included, the 2025 gross expenditure allocation for social protection is over €27.5 billion. Funding provided in 2025 enabled improvements to the social welfare system for people on a range of income supports as well as providing additional support for families and people on illness, disability and carer programmes. Funding in 2025 delivered increases in core weekly social welfare rates, which increased the income of an estimated 1.45 million recipients, increases to the child support payment and working family payment income thresholds, an increase in the domiciliary care allowance rate, and a range of other measures. Significant investment in the health service, with the allocation for health in 2025 reaching €26.1 billion, continues a trend of substantial resourcing in recent years. It underscores the Government’s commitment to ensuring that the healthcare needs of our population can continue to be met in a complex and challenging environment. Ireland achieves good health outcomes across a number of indicators. Over the past decade, Ireland has achieved an improvement in life expectancy. Improvements in the overall health of the population have resulted in significant declines in our mortality rates for many of the common causes of death over the past decade. There have been significant expansions in eligibility for schemes including the free contraception scheme. There have also been women’s health initiatives and the abolition of inpatient charges for public patients. Housing has seen a strong ramp-up in delivery on both the social and affordable programmes. In 2024, 10,500 new social homes were delivered and there is a continued delivery pipeline for 2025 and future years. A total of €9.7 billion in funding is being provided this year for the housing, local government and heritage Vote group. This includes close to €6 billion in capital funding. The significant level of capital investment will continue under the revised national development plan, with almost €40 billion committed over the period to 2030 to support housing delivery and water infrastructure. Education funding in 2025 provided an appropriate school place to over 975,000 students in primary, post-primary and special schools around the country. This is alongside a record number of teachers, with approximately 78,000 employed by the Department of Education and Youth. Close to 700 new teachers were employed in September 2025 for the commencement of the 2025-26 school year. To support the education of students with special education needs, over 400 new special classes were sanctioned for this school year, bringing the total number of special classes to over 3,700. Education capital expenditure in 2025 is supporting the continued progression of around 300 building projects currently at construction. The 2025 funding has also enabled a range of other schemes and initiatives across government. In further and higher education, 2025 funding continues to invest for our future and to meet the skills needs of the labour market. Investment in 2025 provided funding for the increased delivery of apprenticeships, supporting skills development in key areas for the economy such as housing and climate action. At €1.35 billion, investment in early learning and childcare reached record levels in 2025. National childcare scheme universal subsidies are worth up to €5,000 per child in 2025. In addition, the access and inclusion model is now supporting more than 8,000 children with a disability to access childcare. Budget 2026 will continue to see early learning and school-age care prioritised, with an increase in the allocation of 10%. This will support affordability measures including further reductions in the maximum level of fees and increases to the income-assessed thresholds on the NCS. Increased capital funding through the NDP will seek to improve accessibility in the sector. A balanced approach to public service pay in the context of both the State's fiscal position and the broader economic environment was achieved by the Public Service Agreement 2024-2026. Multiyear public service agreements have contributed to stability within our economy by facilitating the delivery of quality public services, ongoing reforms and the maintenance of industrial peace in the public service. The second principal function of the Bill is to provide a legal basis for expenditure to continue into next year in the period before the Dáil votes on the 2026 Estimates. As set out in the Central Fund (Permanent Provisions) Act 1965, the authority for spending in 2026, prior to the agreement of the 2026 Estimates by the Dáil, is based on the amounts included in this Bill. For this reason, it is essential that it be enacted before the end of 2025. Should the Bill not be enacted, there would be no authority to spend any voted moneys in 2026 from the start of January until the approval of the 2026 Estimates. To account for the complexity faced by Departments in planning for major capital projects, the rolling multi-annual capital envelopes introduced in 2004 allow for the carryover of up to 10% of unspent voted capital expenditure from the current year into the next year. This provides the degree of flexibility needed for the year-on-year planning of capital expenditure. Schedule 2 of the Bill sets out the proposed capital expenditure amounts that are to be carried over to 2026 by Vote. The total level of capital carryover sought from 2025 into 2026 is €182.25 million. The carryover figure is on a downward trajectory from the amounts requested by Departments in recent years. I am pleased that the strong performance of capital expenditure this year reflects significant improvements in capital project delivery throughout the country. This continued investment is providing housing, school buildings and transport infrastructure for all our citizens, building capacity for our future. The Revised Estimates Volume 2026, which will be published by my Department in December, will include details of the amounts to be deferred by subhead for Votes that are availing of the capital carryover function for next year. As in previous years, the Appropriation Bill also provides a provision for repayable advances from the Central Fund to the Paymaster General’s supply account to meet certain 2026 Exchequer liabilities due for payment over the first week of January, such as payroll and pension payments. The provision for these advances is critical as the banking system will be closed on Thursday, 1 January. This means that it is necessary for the funding to be in place in departmental bank accounts before the end of this year to meet those liabilities on a timely basis. This Bill also provides provision to prefund certain payments under the Social Welfare Acts due between 1 January and 6 January 2026 that are made on an agency basis by An Post. The advances provision in the Bill ensures that these payments can be transferred from the Department of Social Protection to the network of An Post offices throughout the country. Section 3 provides for up to €1.2 billion to be advanced from the Central Fund to meet these requirements. This is a higher amount than in recent years due to payroll dates in early 2026. This is a technical provision and any advances will be repaid to the Central Fund in January 2026. The Bill is an essential element of housekeeping undertaken by the Dáil each year. The passage of this Bill will authorise in law all of the expenditure that has taken place in 2025 on the basis of the Estimates voted on by the Dáil over the course of this year. It also provides authority for voted expenditure to continue in the period between the beginning of January 2026 and when the Dáil approves the 2026 Estimates. This will ensure the continued funding for the delivery of front-line public services, including our health and education services, social protection payments, funding for An Garda Síochána and much more. It reflects a continuation of our planned approach to public spending, which is focused on delivering our economic, social, and climate ambitions and supporting a growing population now and into the future.

Sentiment score: 0.24