In 2013, Social Protection accounted for 33.0 per cent of total General Government expenditure, followed by expenditure on General Public Services, Education and Health.

Total General Government expenditure for 2013 was €3,196.3 million, an increase of €133.8 million compared with the previous year. There were increases in Social Protection (€49.4 million) primarily observed on pensions, and in Health (€38.4 million), mainly on hospital services. Additionally, Economic Affairs went up by €28.2 million as a result of a higher equity injection to the national air carrier. Education increased by €23.5 million, mainly in tertiary and secondary education. Partly offsetting these were a fall in General Public Services (€10.5 million) and Housing and Community Amenities (€6.1 million).

With regard to expenditure by function as a percentage of total General Government expenditure, the highest proportion in 2013 was on Social Protection (33.0 per cent), followed by General Public Services (16.4 per cent), Education (13.8 per cent) and Health (13.5 per cent). In contrast, expenditure on Housing and Community Amenities had the lowest contribution to total expenditure followed by Defence, representing 0.8 per cent and 1.6 per cent respectively.

In total, General Government expenditure declined marginally to 42.4 per cent of GDP in 2013 from 42.5 per cent in 2012.

A more detailed breakdown of General Government expenditure (by second level function using the COFOG classifi cation) shows that for 2013, the largest expenditure was on old age pensions (€625.5 million), which represented 59.3 per cent of total expenditure on Social Protection, and on hospital services (€280.3 million), making up 64.8 per cent of total expenditure on Health. Moreover, considerable outlay was registered on public debt transactions (€223.3 million) and executive and legislative organs, fi nancial, fi scal and external affairs (€196.6 million).