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
My Minister of State may have more to add because he and his organisation are the experts in managing this so I will offer one general observation. On what I think the Deputy is saying, there was definitely a risk of this in the past but this current phase of modern inflation is different from other challenges that we have had. This is inflation that is caused by a supply shock rather than a demand shock. It is inflation that is caused by what has happened with raw materials and what has happened with supply chains, at least up until recently, as opposed to what have been caused by very high levels of demand within our economy, and that is the case for Europe. It may be different in America and elsewhere in the world but, and the Minister of State's teams have done this, we can see what has happened with the price of wood, steel and concrete. That is a supply issue. That has gone up not because of the levels of demand within our economy, though it may be playing a role. It is primarily a supply shock rather than a demand one.
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