Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 31 January 2024
Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach
Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 11 – Office of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (Revised)
Vote 12 – Superannuation and Retired Allowances (Revised)
Vote 14 – State Laboratory (Revised)
Vote 15 - the Secret Service (Revised)
Vote 17 – Public Appointments Service (Revised)
Vote 18 – National Shared Services Office (Revised)
Vote 19 -the Office of the Ombudsman (Revised)
Vote 39 - Office of Government Procurement (Revised)
Vote 43 – Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (Revised)
Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source
I thank Deputy Conway-Walsh for her questions. I think she is making two different points within that, which I am sure we will engage on in a moment. The first is in regard to the approval of projects and the second is about the process for projects of a certain level. With regard to the approval of projects, what she said in her summary in the early part of her question is correct. We have infrastructure guidelines that were published in December which took effect via circular on 1 January of this year. For projects below €200 million, they ascribe a higher level of responsibility to the Accounting Officer within a Department to ensure that projects are in line with the public spending code. We are in the very early days of that being implemented, literally. Through the infrastructure guidelines that have been issued, we provide clarification regarding who is doing what, and guidance on how projects should be evaluated. As we are in the very early days of that being implemented, I cannot at this point give the Deputy an example of how it has changed actual projects. We are only a few weeks in.
The feedback I have got about it is that the impact will probably be largest in the Department of Health, because it flagged to me that it has a larger cohort of projects at hospitals that are below the €200 million threshold. It believes the implementation of these guidelines has the ability to speed up agreement on those projects. If they are above €200 million, there is a different approach to it, where my Department plays a more central role.
The Deputy asked a question about process. The four-stage process, as I recall, has aspects that impact where we are with procurement and how projects are tendered. There are issues that need to be considered regarding the consistency of any change in those four different stages and continued implementation of our procurement guidelines. I am not aware of any constraints holding up further changes in that four-stage process. My understanding is that earlier in the lifetime of this Government, ways were found to streamline and speed up that process.
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