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

I fully accept that and, in fairness, I have to say on the engagement with the Department's team in relation to data, they have been more than helpful and accommodating to the committee. That is not the point we are making. The point we are trying to make in regard to this performance report and all the time and effort that is going into it is that its specific purpose is to facilitate us as Members of Parliament. That is the reason it is being produced. What we are saying, as a committee, is that this is of little benefit to us because of the data in it. Telling us how many applications are processed in a demand-led scheme on a weekly, monthly or annual basis is of little benefit to us in seeing if this money is being spent properly. I refer to data on the performance of the social welfare appeals office in the context of the number of appeals in regard to the different schemes as a percentage of that, and in respect of SWA and the breakdown of the payments of SWA. Those two sets of data alone will very quickly provide us as, Members of Parliament, with much more information of what is going on.

I accept the Department is transparent in this regard and we can get that data in the quarterly statistics. There is, however, another question about statistical reports but that is not for today. The point I am making is that that data would be far more beneficial to us. As I said, this is not a criticism of the Department. This is a criticism that is focused very much on the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform. It has set a uniform standard across the public service in what type of format it wants. It is dictating as to what we receive, yet this report is supposed to be for us as Members of Parliament. That is the point I am making here. This is, as I said, not a criticism of the Department. I accept, and the Department has gone through it with us before and has explained to us, the constraints that it has met regarding alterations of this and its willingness to commit and engage with the committee. We are flagging this because the Parliamentary Budget Office has been engaging with us on this and it has been pointing out that Members of Parliament, TDs and Senators, are not happy with what they are getting. No one is articulating that, so we want to put it on the record here that we are not happy with what is happening within the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform, in meeting our needs, which is supposed to be the purpose of this report. The reality is we are better off not having this report but instead having a quarterly meeting on the Department's own statistics. This would be far more beneficial to us as a committee in looking at the performance in the Department, instead of officials wasting hours of time producing this report on an annual basis, which is pointless in its stated purpose. That is the difficulty. I do not know if anyone wants to add anything more to it or if there are any final comments the witnesses would like to make.