Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 17 July 2025
Public Accounts Committee
Financial Statements 2023: Health Information and Quality Authority
2:00 am
Ms Angela Fitzgerald:
We have three types of arrangement for ICT. We have permanent staff. We have a small team of staff numbering about 20. Like most public sector organisations, we also have a helpdesk support function. Typically, that is outsourced because we would not have that expertise or be able to recruit that expertise. That runs on a 24-7 basis. For specific projects, which we are doing under our digital strategy, we would buy in expertise because we simply would not have that. Having that expertise available to us is essential in terms of being able to manage external contractors and hold them to account. We use it wisely. We work very closely with the Department around the use of it and we seek to keep it to a minimum. We have seen some changes in the market arrangements. We have seized that opportunity. For example, we had 97 applicants in a recent competition that, if held 18 months ago, we would not have got a candidate. Where we can, we seek to recruit people. We want to build that capability. We are in discussions with the Government about taking on a role as the competent authority for cybersecurity. Having that capability available to us is really important. However, we also recognise the public sector rates will not always allow us to buy it at the level we need.
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