Mr. William Beausang:

I thank Deputy Calleary for his questions. Certainly we would have high ambitions for the work under the equality budgeting initiative and would absolutely recognise the point the Deputy makes. One hears a lot about equality budgeting and its importance and we all understand its significance and value in terms of the contribution it can make but one must ask what that refines down to in specific terms. The indicators and objectives that have been chosen, from our perspective, represent a good cross-section of issues. We are very happy with the engagement we have had from the relevant Departments. The reality is that policy responsibility resides in those Departments and it is often the case that when we look at initiatives that relate to the expenditure framework, there is a somewhat legitimate view that it relates to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and is our responsibility. A good example of that is the issue of performance information. We have engaged with this committee on that issue previously, flowing from the work of the OECD on budgetary scrutiny and parliamentary oversight of public spending with its focus on improving performance information. What we have tried to do is integrate the equality budgeting initiative into that framework but the ownership issue is one upon which we must work with the Departments and we recognise that.

The specific indicators or objectives that are part of the initiative were developed over a relatively short period of time in advance of the budget. As members know from previous meetings, we were working with organisations like the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, IHREC and the National Women's Council in 2017 in trying to scope out an approach. When we finally decided on a way forward on this, it was only two or three months before budget day so we had to go to the Departments and ask them to come on board for this pilot initiative. While we have been very clear that there is very significant learning available through the process that we have now established, it will need to step up significantly for us to be able to properly examine the contribution and value that it can add. What we see as very important in that context is the role of an oversight or governance group with experts who can come in and give further momentum to the initiative going forward. We did engage with the Departments on the objectives and as the Deputy has pointed out, the objective from the Department of Children and Youth Affairs is a very significant one. In terms of the Department of Health, we engaged with the chief medical officer and his team. They thought that smoking reduction was a significant indicator but I take the Deputy's broader point that there are clearly much more significant equality issues to be addressed in the health and education systems.