Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

We were given assurances that there was no interest in all relevant Departments, and I do not know if the CSO was contacted in relation to the continuation of Benefacts. That is pretty much my recollection of it.

The CSO's response shows that there is a sizeable cost in replicating what had been available in Benefacts. It would involve setting it up again where there was something already there. I do not know if we will send that to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform of if it is aware of it. If we had not sent it to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform already, I think we should do that. The Department is saying in correspondence 1378 that, "As the Committee will be aware, most of the relevant data published by Benefacts is available to public bodies as open data from other official bodies." However, the whole idea of Benefacts that was it actually amalgamated that data. That is where the real benefits of Benefacts was. It is infuriating to read that and to know that the likes of the CSO are likely to have to duplicate the work. The other issue highlighted in the CSO’s response is that, "Work planned by the Department of Community and Rural Affairs on social enterprises data collection could be a partial replacement data source, as would data held by the Charities Regulator. However, these data sources would not cover all of the detail". That is the point. We are here to talk about value for money. Something was working, it was closed down, it now has to be replicated and there will be a cost across a range of different Departments. That seems to me to be the very opposite of value for money. In relation to correspondence R1367, I have requested consideration of documents from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and I am asking the committee to seek those documents from the Department that I have referenced. It is in the context of this same range of issues. That is my ask in that piece of correspondence.