Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We are setting up a strategic policy division within the Department. We will continue to maintain the approach that has existed with Forfás and, indeed, is adopted by other Departments such as the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform whereby certain studies can be published that do not reflect or do not necessarily reflect the views of the Minister. We are retaining the scope to publish independent research. That is one of the strengths we wish to retain. That has been clearly signalled in the way this integration is occurring. There will be an independent voice and independent reporting. That is also being copperfastened by the continuing role of Forfás in servicing the National Competitiveness Council, NCC, which will provide reports on competitiveness independently of the Government. We have strengthened that this year by providing that each quarter the NCC will present a report on competitiveness to the Cabinet committee on economic recovery and jobs which will include more detailed policy areas where there is a belief that these need to be addressed.

In terms of presentation of the accounts of the Department, the policy unit will have a certain allocation in terms of staff and so forth but we would not usually set out separate headings for individual units. The non-pay budget of Forfás is already in the Department's research and consultancy part of the overall budget, so we do not intend to separate them. Obviously, however, we would have information available to Deputies on the strategic policy unit and its activities. Clearly, the line sections of the Department overseeing Enterprise Ireland, EI, the Industrial Development Agency, IDA, or Science Foundation Ireland have an important policy dimension to their work in terms of monitoring, understanding and proposing potential changes in policy.

I am determined that policy-making and policy-thinking do not become solely the occupation of a strategic policy unit divorced from the line sections. Its strengths will be in promoting cross-departmental collaboration, looking at how well the various parts are interacting, examining the wider policy environment in which we operate and seeing to what extent we are competitively benchmarking ourselves against the best. I am not instituting a rigid system whereby policy is in one area and everything else is in a separate area. Policy imbues every line operation and that is its role.