Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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Moving away from the script because it is a little theoretical, in layman's or laywomen's English, if Ms McGrath was to set out in her own words, rather than reading from a script, how would she describe the difference she would see in such a process? Normally our Estimates are based on the level of activity and inputs, whereas now we want to know if we are getting a bang for our buck; we want to know what are the outputs or what is the outcome. I will give Ms McGrath an example. As a Deputy I remember issuing a press release about a road project in my area. I knew the figure and budget involved and somebody came up to me afterwards and read the press release and said, "That is wonderful, but what are you doing? Are you improving the junction? Are you putting in an extra lane or are you putting in extra lights?" That stopped me in my tracks and I realised then that it was not what we were spending or how long it would take to do the project that mattered. It was the output or what will be there when it is all over. That made it clear to me the difference between the two. At this level we tend to talk about the wonderful work we intend to do but the public does not care how busy we are. It wants to know the output in terms of what it will see when it is all over. That is my way of putting it.