The national children's hospital has shown a very serious problem with Fine Gael's competence to manage the public finances and the economy. The national budget is the most important vote in Dáil Éireann every year. The budget presented in October last year by Deputy Paschal Donohoe, as both Minister for Finance and Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, did not include any provision for the cost overrun on the national children's hospital although it was known about months previously. Why was there no provision whatsoever for an additional capital spend which was known to be required for this project in the course of 2019 when this House was presented with the budget in October?

The Government has accepted that it knew full well and had full knowledge of the extra costs of the hospital by, at the latest, November last year, including the additional €100 million required for 2019. Everybody accepts that. The Government might have gained that knowledge a bit earlier had the Taoiseach appointed a separate Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform and Minister for Finance, which was one of the main recommendations after the economic collapse.

The October budget was inaccurate but the Government now accepts that it knew about the extra cost in November. Why was that not pointed out when the Revised Book of Estimates, the most important spending document, was presented to this House by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform in mid-December? Why was there no revision of the projected costs in the Department of Health for 2019? Why was capital spending in the Revised Estimate not revised for the national children's hospital?

On Wednesday, 19 December, a month after the Government had full knowledge of these costs, the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Deputy Richard Bruton, moved that the Revised Estimates for the public services be presented to Dáil Éireann and circulated to Members for consideration by select committees. Surely the Dáil was misled when that was done.

In October, the Dáil voted to give the Fine Gael minority Government €7.3 billion to spend on capital projects. That was unrevised from budget day. We now know that the cost of the national children's hospital will be €100 million more than expected this year. The Government has claimed that no major projects will be delayed more than a few months but €100 million of new money needs to be found this year. If projects worth €100 million are pushed back into next year, the same €100 million will have to be found next year unless the Government increases the capital spend.

As we know, it is not just that €100 million for this year. At least €450 million of new money now needs to be found over the next few years in order to build the children's hospital. It is not credible that €450 million worth of savings can be found by postponing projects for a few months.

I directly ask the Taoiseach does he accept that an inaccurate revised volume of public expenditure was presented to this House last December.

I do not accept that. The budget was agreed by this House and the Government in October. The Government did not know the full cost of the overrun, or how it would be profiled, until November and we did not decide what change we would make until the Cabinet meeting this week. The Revised Estimates were done in December. The budget was in October, the extent of the overrun was known in November, the Revised Estimates were done in December and a decision on the reallocation was not made until January. That is the timeline.

Deputy Howlin was Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform for five years. I worked with him during that period on many capital projects, particularly in the area of transport. The Deputy knows that, during the course of every year, there was virement. That is not a Revised Estimate, but being transferred from one capital project to another and one Department to another. That is called virement. I imagine that, if we went back over the record, we would probably find 20 to 30 occasions on which Deputy Howlin, as Minister, signed off on virement, moving money from one Department to another, from current to capital expenditure and from one project to another. It happens throughout the course of the year.

In an overall context, while not diminishing it in any way, the capital budget for this year and the amount of money we will invest in public infrastructure this year is €7.3 billion. That is approximately €140 million per week. We have to find roughly a week's spending, or four and a half days' spending to reallocate within the additional capital spending and that is what we have done.

Is €100 million of no consequence?

It is of consequence.

Why does the Taoiseach diminish it then?

It is done through virement, just as occurred many times when Deputy Howlin was Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform in amounts of €50 million, €100 million and €20 million, and money was regularly moved from one year to the next. I remember him doing it and I thank him for doing it. It was very helpful on the sports campus project.

This is a joke.

Money was moved from capital to current expenditure and from one Department to another. It is done throughout the course of the year and that is exactly what we have done on this occasion. As I said yesterday, this is not an issue of taxpayers' money being wasted. This money has not even been spent yet. The issue is a serious underestimate in the cost of building the project and we accept responsibility for that. The mistake was made by our agents. We signed off on it, we accept responsibility for it, and we will deal with it and build this project. It will be open to our children in 2022 and 2023.

I have heard many comparisons over the past couple of days with other projects in the past such as the Dublin Port tunnel, the original Luas line and the personal, payroll and related systems, PPARS, which overran considerably. It has been compared to other projects including Metro North, the Thornton Hall prison site, the "Bertie bowl" and e-voting, which all cost a lot of money but were rashly abandoned and never concluded. It is telling that people use those comparisons precisely because every single one of them is more than ten years ago and occurred under previous Governments. Overruns in capital projects used to be the norm ten or 20 years ago. They are not the norm anymore.

There was no capital expenditure for seven or eight years.

We have got this right, by and large. The children's hospital is an exception but we will get it right too.

I remind Deputies that this is a question from Deputy Brendan Howlin.

There was no capital spending.

I refuse to accept that the Taoiseach is so ignorant of the budgetary process that he believes what he just said to me. Of course virement can happen after the solemn decision of this House but accurate figures have to be presented to this House in the Book of Estimates for constitutional reasons because the Government has no money at all to spend until the Estimates are voted upon.

If the Taoiseach was aware that the provision allocated to the Department of Health was not true – he admitted himself that he was aware of that when this Revised Estimate was presented by the Minister, Deputy Bruton, on 17 December last – then that was an inaccurate presentation in defiance of his constitutional duty. That is a clear fact.

Yesterday I asked about Directive 2014/24/EU, on public procurement and the Taoiseach spoke about giving people advance notice. Has he had an opportunity since I raised that yesterday to take advice from the Attorney General? Will the Taoiseach assure the House that the contract awarded to build the national children's hospital is in full compliance with that directive?

The overall allocation for capital spending has not changed. It is still €7.3 billion. We only made the decision this week to reallocate some spending from Departments to others. Many of those departmental Estimates have yet to go through the House. They will go through the House and will be accurate at the time but they may yet change again. Out of a budget of €60 billion per annum, there will be always changes during the year. There are virements between Departments and from capital to current expenditure. Sometimes there have to be Supplementary Estimates where Departments overrun a budget. There is nothing unusual about any of that.

Unfortunately I have not had the opportunity to speak to the Attorney General about the EU directive. I will check up on it and get back to the Deputy.