Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The big spend is in the area of current expenditure.

The programme can be broken into one thirds - salaries, programmes and other. Breaking it up item by item, there has not been significant change year on year, rather there has been a change of emphasis. There is nothing to stop the committee from looking in more detail at any one of these sections and asking me to come back to speak about why we are prioritising or spending money in each area. That is what we are giving a flavour of today. There are so many areas that we cover that we could spend a long time speaking about any one of them, from the diaspora to overseas development aid to passport services to consular services and so on. We have looked at the issue and do not see any area where we are not trying to provide value for money through reform, driving efficiencies and using technology. The passport services are a really good example in that regard.