Summary: The State's 280,000 employees may gai most from the Estimates, writes John McManus.
The day-to-day cost of running the State will rise by just over €1.8 billion next year to €34.9 billion. An additional €5.6 billion will be spent on new infrastructure and investment, bringing total spending by the Exchequer to over $40 billion.
The bulk of the increase in current or day-to-day spending will be consumed by the rise in the Civil Service and public sector pay bill, which will grow from €13 billion to €14.2 billion and account for 41 cents out of every euro spent keeping the machinery of Government working.
The Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, was keen to point out yesterday that only €305 million of the €1.1 billion extra that will be spent on pay is accounted for by the controversial benchmarking of public sector pay to private sector rates.
The decision to include any money for benchmarking in the spending Estimates published yesterday may come as a surprise to some, as in theory the money will only be paid if various productivity measures are agreed.
This process has not yet been concluded, but is seen as something of a formality, although the Minister contested this yesterday.
The State's 280,000-odd employees may be the biggest beneficiaries of the increases announced yesterday, but any civil servant hoping to get their office painted or their PC upgraded may be out of luck.
Most Departments have seen their administrative budgets pruned back, particularly in areas such as office machinery and premises maintenance. Budgets for hiring outside consultants have also been trimmed and the Minister yesterday alluded to the the prospect of civil servants being forced to make more decisions for themselves.
Overall, the non-pay costs associated with running the State have been kept to around €20.7 billion.
This represents an increase of 4 per cent and has to be seen against inflation next year being forecast at between 2 per cent and 3 per cent.
At the level of individual Departments, only Education and Health received increases in their day-to-day budgets that were substantially ahead of next year's projected inflation figure.
The current spending budget for Health and Children has been increased by 8 per cent to €9.5 billion, while Education and Science's allocation is up 11 per cent to just over €6 billion.
There was a nominal 1 per cent increase in the Social and Family Affairs budget to €5.8 billion.
The main increases in social welfare spending, such as the rise in child benefit and old age pensions are not announced until Budget day, and it is expected that an additional €250 million will be allocated then.
Despite winning an additional €745 million for his current spending Budget, the Minister for Health maintains that the allocation is not sufficient to allow him honour election promises to increase medical card eligibility. As a consequence various hospital charges are to be increased to raise around €35 million.
The picture is similar at education, where Mr Dempsey has announced that third level registration fees and other charges will go up to meet a funding shortfall, despite his Department receiving an additional €608 million.
In total, some €91 million will be raised by the various Departments through what are being dubbed "stealth taxes".
On the capital spending side, the the Exchequer will contribute €5.6 billion towards a a total planned spend of €9.2 billion. This compares to an Exchequer contribution of €5.6 billion towards spending of €8.7 billion in 2003.
As was the case last year, the difference between the Exchequer contribution and the total spend will be made up from various sources such as Departments' own resources or else through borrowings by State companies or EU grants.
This figure will be €3.6 billion next year, compared to €3.1 billion in 2003.
The bulk of the €500 million increase in the non-Exchequer contribution will come from borrowing by State companies and bodies.
Aer Rianta is pencilled in to borrow €113 million, while CIÉ is to borrow €204 million.
There is also a figure of €150 million included for private sector finance being provided for the national roads programme through public private partnerships. Under these partnerships, private sector companies assume responsibility for raising the funds to construct roads.
Almost all of the additional €500 million will be borrowed in connection with transport projects and, as a result, the Department of Transport emerges as the winner in the capital spending stakes.
Total spending by the Department will rise 13 per cent to €2.26 billion even though its allocation from the central Exchequer for capital spending has been cut by €62 million to €1.6 billion.
Capital spending by the Department of Education will rise marginally from €515 million to €521 million.
However spending of roughly €22 million has been redirected towards national schools in education and away from institutes of technology and VECs.
Investment by the the Department of Health will increase from €515 million to €573 million. Spending on health facilities will fall by over €30 million, while €63.5 million will be injected into the VHI in a move seen as a precursor to its sale or privatisation.
The Department of the Environment's capital budget has increased from €2.88 billion to €2.92 billion, with most of the increase going on various housing-related measures.