NDP running €4bn below target level

TOTAL expenditure on the Government’s National Development Plan (NDP) is running some €4 billion below what was promised.

When drawn up in 1999, the Government pledged that the ambitious plan would see over €52 billion of public, private and EU funds invested in areas ranging from health and housing to water and waste services over 2000 to 2006.

As part of that, the Government forecast that €40 billion would be spent on the plan from 2000 to the end of 2004. However, a briefing note from the Dept of Finance shows that target was not fully met.

“Total cumulative NDP expenditure to end 2004 has amounted to over €36 billion, representing 90% of the total forecasted NDP expenditure for the period,” the note says.

This means about €4 billion of promised investment was not actually spent.

However, the department yesterday insisted that all the funding commitments made would eventually be met by the end of the NDP’s life span in 2006.

The NDP budget is divided into seven separate sections: economic and social infrastructure; employment and human resources development; the productive sector; the southern and eastern region; the border, midland and western region; the CAP rural development programme; and the PEACE programme (promoting peace and reconciliation in the wake of the Troubles).

A department spokesman said spending on some sections was ahead of schedule, while on others it was behind. The reason for the latter was “slow start-ups” on some of the projects being funded in the initial years of the plan. But the spokesman said that much progress had been made in recent times, and that, from the department’s view, overall delivery on expenditure targets was in a “reasonably favourable position” now compared to what it had been. All commitments made would be met, the spokesman added.

The Government announced this week that it will put in place a new NDP once the current one ceases at the end of 2006.

The successor, the preparation of which will be coordinated by Finance, will cover the seven-year period from 2007 to 2013.

The Government said it would “particularly focus” on investment priorities in areas such as transport, environmental services, housing, education, health and childcare.

The current NDP was the first not designed specifically to draw down EU funding - although it still qualified for €6 billion of European monies.

The Government anticipates that “virtually all funding for investment under the post-2007 plan would come from the Exchequer.”