Tom Barry (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The witnesses and Minister are all very welcome today. It was a very interesting contribution. It is important and very necessary to have a medium to long-term perspective. Perhaps we lacked it in the past. There certainly did not seem to be a co-ordinated approach to achieving economic stability, which is vital, in the longer term.

Reference was made to climate change, demographics and infrastructural projects. Bearing in mind that the prices of oil and other fuels are dropping and the medium-term objectives associated with projects such as district heating and housing, which involve major infrastructure, we now have a chance to do things properly.

In 2011, I believe, I read a publication, a review document, that highlighted the lack of expertise in Departments. It highlighted that many policies were sent out for evaluation and that, owing to that outsourcing, there was a real risk of policy capture. This was quite worrying.

Does the Minister think he has rectified that situation now? It was clearly not an approach with which one could continue. It is welcome that the Irish Government Economic and Evaluation Service has 70 new economists and evaluators. How many more does the Minister think will be needed to reach the full complement to do this work?

The Minister also mentioned performance budgeting, which was great to hear. Would he consider sectors such as the agri-sector in which there were necessary cuts, as in all other Departments, and which are now returning strongly to economic growth to be a priority for additional funding down the line? I welcome co-funding for projects to date. The cuts in current and capital funding were I think 8% and 16%.

The Minister mentioned Civil Service renewal. We have been through a long process as part of which people gave out about the Civil Service. It has been constant background noise, but it is important that we start talking about Civil Service renewal. Yes, robustness and accountability are important, but civil servants must have the skills required to deliver and must feel their contribution is of value, which I am not sure was the case previously.

I presume the projections the Minister has made will be more accurate as time passes. I run an SME and have done so for many years. When we started a cashflow analysis, we found it incredibly difficult and got it wrong because we did not have the necessary skills. When we started to do it year-on-year, our margin of error decreased. Having the yearly spend and medium-term investment is critical. I would be interested to hear what the Minister sees as an acceptable rate of error, 2%, 3%, or 5%? One needs flexibility.

The issue of health spending has been brought up which I sometimes think is a very blunt instrument with which to attack the Government. The National Centre for Pharmacoeconomics evaluates clinically whether drugs work. It is not widely known that many drugs do not work. They work on 30% or 50% of the population, but as a country we are expected to pay for 100%. Some companies want us to pay for everything, yet they will not accept that we should not pay for those drugs that do not work. If they only work on 50% of the population, we should not have to pay full dollar. There should be some accommodation in that regard. Ireland was known as Treasure Island. Thankfully, that is changing, but if we succumb to every request made, that is what we will still become. I witnessed a conversation one night a number of years ago when a certain drugs company was trying to put on pressure to have its drug approved. It even suggested it might consider pulling some jobs out of the country. That behaviour is unacceptable, but that is the pressure Ministers and others are under. At times we use health spending as a very easy stick with which to beat the Government.

I welcome the extra spend of €429 million. IrelandStat is important and we have often been criticised for not communicating properly. It is important that people can see in a straightforward fashion how the extra moneys are being spent and how they will, I hope, have a positive effect.

It is welcome that the spending reviews are, as the Minister says, not simply a tool for reductions in expenditure because that would be the wrong mindset to have. We need to be prudent, but if we can see that a performance can be achieved in a certain area, we should be prepared to achieve it.