Government spending

It's not definitely on the way now, but there is money to develop it, identify outlets where it could be used and how it will be delivered.

Is that enough to keep the peace after fairly acrimonious discussions at times with the Department of Public Expenditure? Maybe, maybe just about.

One we'll

watch rather closely.

Where

are we at? Yes, because there will be money clearly identified on Tuesday, which would suggest that it will be sorted.

What you do have from government and from the public expenditure minister, I think, is a new, fairly tough approach and a hard line.

And, of course, central to that is that he doesn't want any preconditions.

Uh, also on the front of the Irish Times, uh, "Rough budget talks leave most departments without deals." Uh, there's some good coverage of this in the Irish Examiner as well, so we'll, um, go into that in a moment.

Uh, but most ministers have not yet agreed to their spending allocations, uh, for next year with the Public Expenditure minister, Jack Chambers, uh, after a series of bruising budget meetings in recent days.

Uh, also, "Brendan Kavanagh exits Grinds firm weeks after suspension of CEO." This is an interesting one.

A bitter boardroom dispute Mark Tighe is writing about, uh, over governance and control, this is in Ireland's biggest online grinds company, has led to the temporary suspension of the company's chief executive, uh, before a deal was done for him to, uh, uh, for him to buy out, uh, his own co-founder.

Uh, also on the front of the Examiner, uh, that story about the ministers being pushed to the limit, uh, ahead of budget 2027.

Uh, the general context here, obviously, is that with, uh, the fuel price crisis, uh, looming its head once again, a huge spades of the p- uh, budget are being moved around to support, uh, crucial measures.

I imagine, uh, the Tanaiste/Finance Minister Simon Harris and the Public Expenditure minister, Jack Chambers, uh, will be desperate, uh, to see if budget 2027 can avert the kind of national blockade protests that really did grind the country to a halt.

Uh, on the front of the Irish Daily Star, Conor McGregor features for, uh, probably the third day in a row, or something adjacent to Conor McGregor.

And that was Kevin Calnan of the Forza Trade Union speaking to me a short time ago.

The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Jack Chambers, is here.

Good afternoon.

Thank you.

But since then, ministers have also approved extra funding for defence and aid to Ukraine, leaving a gap in the state's finances.

It's understood the Public Expenditure Minister, Jack Chambers, has warned Cabinet colleagues that the government's official spending ceiling will have to be increased again before the end of the year.

The biggest concern remains the health service.

The HSE has already recorded a deficit of €660 million by the end of August, and the Dáil's Public Accounts Committee has heard that shortfall could reach €1 billion by the end of the year.

Moving on to the budget, there are just nine days to go before it's announced in the Dáil by the Finance Minister and Fine Gael leader Simon Harris and Public Expenditure and Reform Minister Jack Chambers.

A lot of the detail has already found its way into the Leinster House press corps and we're joined by the Irish Examiner's political editor, Elaine Loughlin.

Hello, Elaine.

She said, "You're re-running the same out-of-touch gold slow approach that brought so much anger and so much stress and discontent back in the springtime." Uh, she told Jack Chambers in a heated Dáil exchange.

Now, Jack Chambers is the Public Expenditure, uh, Minister.

"Anger," you will remember she said, "that boiled over into mass protest.

The public had to force you to listen.

Now, spending- On non-clinical items, uh, which would be more than 5,000 euros.

So any spending on non-clinical items to a value of more than five grand will in future need the personal authorization of Anne O'Connor, and Anne O'Connor is the HSE, uh, chief executive.

Now, the spending controls are being sought by Jennifer Carroll McNeil, who's the health minister, and also Jack Chambers, who's the public expenditure minister.

And this is because of concerns about overspending, uh, with the HSE understood to have recorded a financial deficit of just under 700 million up to August.

However, he accepted that some public cynicism remains over the rail project and maybe public cynicism has probably hardened over the recent years due to the debacle over the National Children's Hospital completion.

Public Expenditure and Reform Minister Jack Chambers last year created a new committee to speed up the delivery of key projects across the state.

It's called the Accelerating Infrastructure Task Force and one of its members, Sean O'Driscoll, is here with me in studio, the former Chief Executive of the electrical group's giant, Glen Dimplex.

Thanks for coming in and joining us on This Week.

That is Gavin Cooney, sports journalist with the Irish Times.

On to a different topic now.

On this programme, two weeks ago, public expenditure and reform minister Jack Chambers announced that the government was introducing further controls on the HSE due to a spiralling overspend.

It followed confirmation from the HSE chief executive, Anne O'Connor, that budget overruns had risen to €580 million by the end of July.

Kieran in Earl's Court says, Andy Haldane's appearance on LBC flagged serious issues with the Labour government's attitude towards tax and spending.

With government borrowing costs now at a 19-year high, is Britain now facing an impending IMF bailout unless Burnham and Healy change course? Now, the former Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane warned LBC yesterday that Prime Minister Andy Burnham faces a straight choice between raising taxes and cutting public spending in the upcoming autumn budget.

UK government borrowing costs hit multi-decade highs with the 30-year gilt yield touching its highest level since 1998 and the 10-year yield reaching its highest since 2007. driven partly by global inflation fears and conflict in the Middle East.

James Meadway, this is kind of up your strasser, isn't

So we're the fastest growing economy in the G7 in the first half of this year.

But everyone plays this game.

As I said earlier in the programme, when it comes to September in the budget, everyone says tax is going to go up or you can't cut public spending because that's terrible.

In fact, it's the only person who knows What is going to happen is the Chancellor, the OBR, will set out their figures.

While the government repeats that everything is still on the table, a few things are clear.

Public Expenditure and Reform Minister Jack Chambers has indicated he wants to help low middle income earners reduce childcare costs and have targeted child supports.

Among the problems though, global instability, departmental overruns and a possible strike by the country's largest public sector trade union.

Minister Chambers joins me in studio.

That's why there'll be a significant income tax package, but one that's moderate overall because we have to do what's affordable and safe.

Secondly, in terms of improvement of day-to-day services, we know that the cost of childcare is a substantial burden on a lot of young families and we want to help them in Budget 2027.

But there will be trade-offs across government and I'm very clear from a public expenditure perspective that we also need to prioritise reform, efficiencies and productivity within the public service.

And that means that we're not just looking at the additional €7 billion of expenditure in 27, what more can we get out of the existing base of spend? So for my ministerial colleagues, it's about trying to ensure that we stretch a greater delivery on the existing level of spend within the Irish economy.