Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Egan for his submissions. From a logistical point of view, it would be useful if we got them either in Word format or as PDFs rather than scanned documents. It is just easier for us to work with. From a logistical point of view, it would make it easier.

I have a number of questions about the documentation that is before us and I would like to go through those with Mr. Egan. This is probably one of the most important meetings this committee will hold this year, on the performance report. Mr. Egan will know from reading my contributions at previous meetings on Estimates, Revised Estimates and performance reports that I am quite critical of the statistics that are in front of us because I do not think they clearly reflect the activity within the Department. They are not useful to us as Members of the Oireachtas in terms of monitoring the spend. I would question the outputs that are measured. The average number weekly payments per month and the average monthly payments, and those reflected under each of the schemes, are of no use to us as a committee. Whether it meets a particular percentage or not is based on population and as the population increases or the number of older people increases, there are going to be more pension applications processed and payments made. In terms of providing a reflection of performance, it is of no benefit to us as members of the Oireachtas. We are told the targets are constantly under review but, as I have said consistently, there needs to be an engagement between the Department and this committee on the targets that are set out.

Deputy Ó Cuív articulated the issue of the impacts, and I will come to that in a minute, but there is also the matter of the outputs. We are measuring the wrong things when it comes to these figures being of use to us in delivering what we all want to achieve. It was made very clear to us by the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform yesterday that it is anxious that there would be actual engagement between the committee and the Department regarding the setting of these performance targets.

We as a committee are anxious to work with the Department on that. Maybe you could give us a timeline for this review process. When does it take place and how can the committee actively participate in it to ensure we are measuring something that benefits us as a committee in reflecting the activity within the Department and the use of that money? In fairness, this committee is in general very satisfied with the operation of the Department, so it is not the case that we are seeing the Department as falling down in the work it is doing, but we do not think that what has been presented to us clearly reflects what is going on within the Department. Maybe you could answer that first for me.