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

I wanted to comment specifically on page 30, and the proposal regarding the development of a database. Why did the Department commission Pobal to research a single, reliable and accurate source of information on State funding in the community and voluntary sector, when Pobal was aware that Benefacts had already built Who Funds What, which would be the database it is talking about. That is one question I would like us to ask the Department.

Why, in the report, did Pobal say: "As things stand, multiple systems exist across Government Departments and state agencies creating dispersed sets of data that cannot easily be compared, shared or analysed in a holistic or thematic way"? That is a direct quote. It is aware that Benefacts Analytics had that service, and obviously, it was dispensed with. Why was Benefacts Analytics being used in 2020 and 2021 by Tusla in its financial management processes? Why was that not considered as the basis for further development?

Those are my three areas. I do not know if the committee is aware, but the Carmichael Ireland Centre had a launch last Friday, which I attended.

I do not know if any departmental officials attended that but this is an attempt to retrieve something of what Benefacts did but it would not replicate it. It proves that there is a need for what was there and dispensed with. We are looking at a quite a sizable cost of €4 million, on that page. Total operations costs by year five would be almost €2 million on that table. It seems that if we are looking examples of wasting money, we need not look any further than this because there was already a very satisfactory system in place. I would like to put those questions to the Department.