Mr. Derek Moran:

I welcome the opportunity to present to the committee. I will introduce my colleagues - Mr. John Hogan is from our banking division, Mr. John McCarthy, is our chief economist, and Mr. Derek Tierney and Mr. Aidan Murphy are from corporate affairs.

The Department's mission is to manage the Government finances and play a central role in the achievement of the Government's economic and social goals. To bring the greatest possible focus to the strategy, we have adopted two strategic goals from which flow our detailed business plans, HR strategies and organisational structure. These goals are a sustainable macroeconomic environment and sound public finances; and a balanced and equitable economy enabled by a restructured, vibrant, secure and well-regulated financial sector. Everything that we do derives from these strategic goals.

In delivering on them, we provide independent, impartial and well-informed, evidence-based advice to the Minister and the Government. This will concentrate on the most appropriate fiscal policy to maintain solid economic growth and the policies that will ensure that Ireland's financial system can operate on a stable, sustainable and commercial basis.

I will briefly comment on how we organise the Department and the importance of its people, good governance and openness in our business as the means by which we support our strategic objectives. Our organisational structure derives directly from the two strategic goals. Accordingly, the Department is arranged into two directorates. The economic and fiscal directorate reports on a day-to-day basis to me. It includes the economic, tax, EU and international divisions along with facilities management, corporate affairs and human resources. The finance and banking directorate reports on day-to-day business to the second Secretary General. It includes the banking and financial services divisions, the risk and stability division, the shareholding management unit and the legal and finance units.

The structure is not fixed and evolves according to needs and emerging priorities. It is key to the proper administration of the functions entrusted to the Department that there is clarity about individual roles and responsibilities. This clarity is provided by the senior management team. Indeed, the executive board is currently in the middle of a manpower and organisational review of the finance and banking directorate.

Our success in achieving the goals we set will depend on our people. They are at the centre of everything we do. The senior management team is focused on enhancing and developing skills and capability throughout the Department to allow us to perform better not just as individuals, but as teams. Our strategy, specifically and importantly, acknowledges the need for integration between HR management and business strategy. The Department has been criticised in the past for deficits in its skill levels. The orientation of our HR efforts are to ensure that we recruit and equip our staff with the knowledge, skills and expertise appropriate to their current roles while facilitating personal development and career opportunities.

To this end, the Department, through the implementation of our learning and development strategy, has created and offers professional diploma courses as follows: a diploma in tax policy and practice; a diploma in financial services; and a certified diploma in project management. We are also developing in-house core economics modules for implementation during 2017. These formal learning courses are or will be available to all staff. Currently, a staff of just over 300 hold almost 600 accredited qualifications, of which approximately one quarter are at postgraduate level or above.

We also go beyond simply developing "hard skills" by building leadership capability throughout the Department. In addition to coaching, mentoring and leadership programmes, we have recently introduced a process that aids personal development by helping staff to identify and adapt behaviours in order to achieve their objectives.

Since my appointment as Secretary General, I have sought to promote good corporate governance and compliance in the Department. This has included the development and publication of our corporate governance framework, which informed the development of a common corporate governance standard for the Civil Service. The key objective was to bring clarity to how the Department was structured, directed, controlled and managed in addition to the roles of individual senior managers, and saw the evolution of the old management advisory committee into an executive board. The board operates to the principles of shared participation and personal and corporate responsibility for the operational success of the entire Department. To ensure that each executive board member has a stake in the corporate and operational success of the Department, members have been assigned corporate-related responsibilities in addition to their normal policy areas to ensure shared responsibility across the board.

The Department is committed to delivering information and policy in as open a way as possible, consistent with the law, and to the regular and timely publication of internal technical studies, policy reviews and other relevant statements, papers, reports and action plans. Extensive engagement with stakeholders, think tanks and other experts inevitably helps to improve the quality of our policy advice.

We have sought to improve the evidence base available on macroeconomic and tax policy changes with a view to improving the quality of policy advice. To this end, a joint research programme was agreed with the ESRI in early 2015. Specifically, joint research was commissioned through the programme well in advance of the UK's referendum on EU membership. Identified as a major strategic risk, it was important that an economic framework be developed and widely and publicly disseminated.

The Department conducts a wide range of public consultations to ensure that stakeholders are taken into account in policy development. We actively respond to consultations from other Departments and public bodies, such as the Central Bank review of the macro-prudential residential mortgage lending measures. As part of normal business, we processed 405 freedom of information requests, 2,500 parliamentary questions and 4,500 ministerial representations from stakeholders in 2016.

To enhance openness and transparency, the Department publishes the Minister's appointment diary, my appointment diary and the minutes of all executive board meetings. We also publish and intend to publish minutes arising from our interinstitutional arrangements, such as the Revenue liaison group, which is a quarterly meeting between me, the second Secretary General and the Revenue Commissioners, and the newly formed financial stability group, formerly the principals group, which involves senior persons in the Central Bank and the National Treasury Management Agency.

We will continue to adapt and improve our operating model so that our organisational structure, accountabilities and responsibilities, along with the right people, processes and technology, work together to support strategic priorities over the next three years. I would be happy to discuss any of these matters and welcome questions from the committee.