Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 25 June 2025
Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach
Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 11 - Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation (Revised)
Vote 12 - Superannuation and Retired Allowances (Revised)
Vote 14 - State Laboratory (Revised)
Vote 15 - Secret Service (Revised)
Vote 17 - Public Appointments Service (Revised)
Vote 18 - National Shared Services Office (Revised)
Vote 19 - Office of the Ombudsman (Revised)
Vote 39 - Office of Government Procurement (Revised)
Vote 43 - Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (Revised)
2:00 am
Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
Can the Minister elaborate a little more? This is the first time he has had the opportunity to appear before the committee. Can he elaborate on how the issue was identified? He was at pains to say, of course, that no individuals who are affected are themselves at fault. Was this identified by an outside audit or by a number of individuals in a certain section of the NSSO? We see here in black and white that there are processes that the NSSO uses that are automated by robotics. Is the Minister familiar with how the issue was identified? Were robotics or a form of AI used to identify the problems? The Minister may not be aware of that, which I can understand.
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