ANY COST-OF-LIVING measures announced as part of this year’s budget will have to be rolled out by the end of the year, Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe has confirmed.

Speaking at the Government Buildings today, Donohoe said Budget 2025 will see a total of €105.4 billion in expenditure being made available. 

“Budget 2025 will provide for an additional €6.9 billion in expenditure next year. Of this, €5.1 billion will cover the costs of meeting existing level of service requirements in 2025,” he said.

Taoiseach Simon Harris, along with Finance Minister Jack Chambers, have confirmed that the budget in October will include a cost-of-living package. 

Donohoe said today that has the ability to do cost-of-living measures, “but we will have to pay for and account for them within 2024″, he said, meaning any one-off measures will have to be rolled out before the end of the year. 

He explained this is consequence of the new budget rules implemented by the European Union.

While his said inflation has come down significantly from previous years, prices have still gone up.

“So yes, we will continue to help with the impact of the cost-of-living,” he said, adding that that the measures will not be on the scale of previous years due to the fact inflation has fallen.

Health spending

Speaking about health spending, the minister said he is “confident” health overspends will be reined in, despite warnings from the State’s fiscal watchdog.

Overruns in current health spending were at an unprecedented level of €1.4 billion  at the end of July this year.

The Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (Ifac) warned yesterday that the health overspend could go above €2 billion this year.

Donohoe said the exceptional level of health overspend in the first half of the year necessitated a different response to previous years.

As part of the Summer Economic Statement, the government agreed to provide the health sector an additional €1.5 billion for the health sector in 2024.

In addition, a further €1.2 billion euro will be allocated in 2025 for existing level of service costs.

The HSE and the Department of Health have agreed that this additional funding will provide an opportunity to strengthen financial planning and governance.

However, Ifac has previously warned that if overruns continue to mount, they could exceed two billion euro this year – substantially more than the €1.5 billion assumed in the Summer Economic Statement.

Donohoe said today: “I expect and I’m confident that their current spending will be inside (the €1.5 billion) level.

“We only made the agreement with them in July, so I always expected that it would be in the second half year that we would begin to see the implementation of that agreement, and that’s what I am confident will happen.”

The minister was also asked about the TV licence fee and whether there are concerns payment levels won’t increase, as predicted by government. 

“I am very confident that the levels of compliance with the television licence are going to improve,” said Donohoe.

He said he saw “positive signs” in recent collection figures, which showed an increase in July 2024 when compared to the same month last year.