Mr. Barry Lowry:

I will perhaps talk about the two layers of this. The first layer relates to the data itself. My division, the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer in the Department of public expenditure, runs it. It set up, under the Data Sharing and Governance Act 2019, the data governance board.

That data governance board represents all facets of society, not just public service but also business and the needs of the public. Dr. Aideen Hartney, for example, who has given evidence to this committee, was an active member of our data governance board. The reason Ministers specifically invite people like that onto the board is because they provide checks and balances on whether the Government's plans regarding sharing and use of data meet the needs of all society, including the most vulnerable. Because of her particular skill set, she might pick up things that, for example, I might not pick up. That is how we do the data governance part.

As I said, what we want to do is build digital processes around life events and life events, by their very nature, require you to speak to all communities to understand the user journeys people go through when accessing Government services. I can only give a personal example. We are also responsible for the gov.iewebsite and one of the things we have driven is the reading age required for gov.ieis now 12. We got it down to 14 and it is now 12 That is informed by working with groups like the National Adult Literacy Agency, NALA, the National Disability Authority, NDA, and so on.