Ms Caroline O'Loughlin:

I thank the Chair for the invitation to appear before the committee and the opportunity to discuss how equality budgeting can contribute to the recommendations of the Citizens' Assembly on Gender Equality, and to answer any questions the committee may have about equality budgeting and its role within the overall expenditure framework.

Equality budgeting is a way of approaching and understanding the budget as a process that embodies long-standing societal choices about how resources are used, rather than simply a neutral process of resource allocation. In practice, this means that equality budgeting attempts to provide greater information on how proposed or ongoing budgetary decisions impact particular groups in society, thereby integrating equality concerns into the budgetary process. Beginning with a pilot programme for the 2018 budgetary cycle, due to the availability of disaggregated data, the initial focus of equality budgeting was on gender, following which the initiative was broadened to other dimensions of equality, such as socioeconomic inequality, disability and minority groups. Integrated within the performance budgeting framework, equality objectives and indicators are published every year in the Revised Estimates Volume, REV, and the public service performance report. Six Departments were involved in the pilot and, following periodic expansion of this policy, all 18 Departments are now participating in equality budgeting.

The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is committed to working with other Departments, agencies, experts and advocacy groups to advance the equality budgeting initiative to best international standards. In 2018, an expert advisory group was established to guide development of this work. The role and objectives of the expert group are to give constructive critical feedback and to provide expert guidance and informed insight on the future direction and areas of focus for equality budgeting. Members of the group include key Departments, the CSO, the National Economic and Social Council, NESC, the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, the National Women’s Council of Ireland, the National Disability Authority and the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission.

In 2019, the OECD was requested to conduct a review of the equality budgeting pilot and give recommendations on how this work could be progressed in line with international best practice. The report, published in 2019, provided 12 recommendations on how to drive this initiative forward. Implementation of the report's recommendations is now at an advanced stage. In order to assess the availability of disaggregated data, the CSO appointed a statistician to conduct a data audit in 2020. The results of the data audit, which are available on the CSO website, provide a central point of information and highlight where data gaps exist. Overseen by the CSO and the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, a data strategy is currently being drafted to address this and identify measures that can enhance the data captured. Another OECD recommendation was the development of a tagging and tracking functionality for departmental expenditure. An EU-funded project to develop this capability is currently under way, with officials from the OECD in Dublin this week to meet pilot Departments.

To accelerate the implementation of equality budgeting, in 2021 the Government agreed to the establishment of an interdepartmental group for equality budgeting to facilitate the embedding of the initiative across all Departments. Members are accountable for ensuring that policymakers in their Departments are fully aware of, and implementing, equality budgeting policy, where applicable, and bringing all relevant work within their Departments to the attention of the performance budgeting unit to ensure that the strategic direction of equality budgeting is fully informed. This group will play a key role in guiding the continued progress of equality budgeting.

An ambitious work plan for equality budgeting policy is in place for the coming year, which aims to continue the momentum achieved to date and further advance this work. All Departments have been requested to conduct a skills and needs analysis to inform this work. Some Departments reported on this at the last interdepartmental group meeting in February, with remaining Departments due to report at the next meeting, which will be held later today. The equality budgeting framework is kept under constant review to ensure it best serves the purpose of increasing transparency and accountability on public expenditure impact. Feedback from stakeholders is an essential part of this and we look forward to receiving feedback from this committee.