Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Chairman has put three points to me. There is a common thread which is driving the general increase in the Vote and there are three specific matters related to the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer. There has been an increase in the number of staff in the Department and we are now paying for the full year effects of recruitment that took place in 2017. There are also, of course, changes in wage levels owing to implementation of the public service stability agreement. There are three specific projects which are driving the larger increase in the Vote. There is a build-to-share project that is on the way; we are developing the infrastructure to deal with particular matters such as the use of cloud services, for example, which we will then make available to all other Departments. We also have costs related to the roll-out of the public services card and additional costs associated with the use of the digital services gateway.

The Chairman's second question was related to section 39 organisations. I hear his support for Deputy Joan Burton's comments. I will work with the HSE to ensure that piece of work is completed in the timings we have indicated. As I said, from the initial work we have done, we can already see the complexity of the matter. Information technology costs for the HSE and An Garda Síochána are matters for their individual Votes rather than mine.