A major boost to Government funded capital investment will be announced as part of the exchequer spending plans for 1999. Government-supported capital investment spending is set to rise by some 23 per cent, allowing major new investment in areas such as roads, railways, schools and other infrastructure.

The Government is to provide an extra 13 per cent from its own voted resources to boost capital spending. In addition, other resources - such as the expected receipts from the privatisation of Telecom Eireann and new borrowing by CIE - will be added to this to bring the overall public capital programme to over £4 billion.

The Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, is expected to present this large increase as a means of attacking the bottlenecks threatening economic growth in areas such as road and transport infrastructure.

More funds will also go towards job creation through a rising capital grant allocation for IDA Ireland, to meet the state's commitments to the major industrial investment projects announced over the past year. Meanwhile, higher capital spending on schools will be presented as part of a social inclusion programme. In addition, the Department of Tourism and Sport will be one of the main beneficiaries from higher capital spending, receiving a major 120 per cent increase to boost investment in areas of tourism as well as sporting projects.

Meanwhile, day to day Government spending on running departments and providing services is set to rise by around 8 per cent.

Overall current spending will, however, increase by a much lesser amount and will be around the Government's 4 per cent target, due to the benefits to the exchequer from the fall in the cost of servicing the national debt.