The Department of Health will have to find savings and efficiencies of €175 million next year under a levy agreed by Government to offset overspending in the education sector. It comes against the backdrop of renewed pressure on health spending, with the HSE reporting it has already overspent to the tune of €250 million in the first quarter of this year. There is ongoing behind-the-scenes unrest over the impact of the levy as the sums being asked of from each department begin to emerge. The Irish Times understands that the Department of Further and Higher Education is facing the task of finding savings and efficiencies of more than €50 million under the levy, equivalent to 1.3 per cent of its current expenditure.The levy is imposed on current expenditure - a measure of spending on items such as new staff hires, and excludes projects such as the construction of new buildings. Details of the levy being applied to individual departments have been set out in answers to parliamentary questions tabled by Social Democrats TD Cian O’Callaghan and Labour TD Ged Nash, as well as on foot of an analysis by The Irish Times.Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers said a number of key areas of State spending would be protected from the levy. Photo: Sam Boal/Collins The Department of Higher Education did not say on Friday, May 22nd, how much the levy would amount to in monetary terms. It said it was “currently investigating options to enable it to address this request”.However, it is understood that the 1.3 per cent levy it faces would translate into about €53 million. The move is likely to have implications for plans for new initiatives in the department next year, sources said.[ Government exceeds annual budget by average of €5.1bn since 2023Opens in new window ]The Irish Times reported on Friday that the Department of Justice was being asked for savings of €39 million. Meanwhile, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine on Friday said it was likely to amount to €26 million in its case. “The specific implications of the levy are being examined by Minister Martin Heydon and he will engage with the Department of Public Expenditure as part of his negotiations for Budget 2027,” it said. The Department of Culture, Communications and Sport, headed by Minister Patrick O’Donovan, said a levy of €11 million was being applied to current expenditure next year.The Department of Finance said the levy amount being applied to it was €10 million. This also covers the Comptroller and Auditor General, the Revenue Commissioners and Tax Appeals Commission.[ Ministers face new budget curbs in overspending crackdownOpens in new window ]The Department of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht said it had to make savings of €5 million, while the Department of Climate, Energy and Environment said it had been notified of a levy of €3 million.The levy was introduced by the Government in recent weeks to cover €446 million of an overall overspend of €646 million in the Department of Education.Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers said a number of key areas of State spending would be protected from the levy. These included housing, homelessness services and frontline pay and pensions, which created the variations in the scale of the levy across different areas. He said departments “have the opportunity now to find efficiencies to offset any reduction”. O’Callaghan said instead of deflecting responsibility and punishing other Government departments, Chambers should explain “why he got the budget allocation for education so spectacularly wrong”. Nash said Labour has “long argued for greater spending transparency” but the way in the levies were being “presented by Ministers in their replies to me is anything but transparent”. “The impact on budgets is not abstract. Ministers need to stop the opaqueness, front up and admit what the real monetary cost to their departments will be,” he said.