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Dáil
‹ Questions on Promised Legislation

Order of Business

Summary

The Ceann Comhairle asks Members to be brief. Deputy Donnelly raises the prospect of a supplementary budget linked to Brexit funding, and the Minister says Brexit is already being addressed in the 2017 budget and further steps will come in Budget 2018.

Before we move on to Questions on Promised Legislation, 12 Deputies are offering and only 15 minutes is allocated for this business today, so I ask Members to be brief.

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Stephen Donnelly Deputy Stephen S. Donnelly Fianna Fáil

First, I wish to acknowledge the departure of An Taoiseach, Deputy Enda Kenny, and should have done so earlier. I also wish to acknowledge his work over the years in very difficult times, and I wish him and his family the very best.

I wish to ask the Minister about the possibility of the introduction of a supplementary budget before budget 2018, specifically in the context of what we spoke about earlier, namely, funding for Brexit. In the last budget, the combined funding that went to the IDA, Enterprise Ireland, and Bord Bia was €4.6 million. The Minister and I may disagree on the level of activity but I would hope we would agree that with respect to the total budget for those excellent agencies of €4.6 million that they could do a great deal more good with a higher budget. To put that into context, the first supplementary budget for health last year came in at €500 million and the Dáil voted it through. There was a second supplementary budget for health which, I believe, was approximately €389 million. We can vote through amounts of money on the basis that Brexit is this enormous challenge. Can we expect to see a supplementary budget, specifically for the State agencies tasked with helping businesses and farmers in the country?

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Paschal Donohoe Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Fine Gael

I thank the Deputy for his comments relating to the Taoiseach and his family. I am a bit confused by the attitude of Fianna Fáil towards budgetary policy because on the one hand Deputy Michael McGrath is continually asking me to make sure we have no plans to bring in a supplementary budget but the Deputy is now asking me if we have such plans. We have plans in place to deal with Brexit and they were dealt with the context of the 2017 budget. I acknowledge that we will look at and take further steps to deal with that challenge and do it in the context of the 2018 budget.

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