James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail)
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I welcome all the officials. I believe Ms Hurley has recently been appointed Secretary General. We wish her well. Generally, I have quite positive things to say about the Department. Notwithstanding that, we need to look at a couple of matters.

The first area is around the Benefacts database, which was discussed by the committee previously, particularly as it relates to the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, although the Department of Social Protection is tied into this as well. It is a little peculiar because we know approximately €7 million in funding was used for what is now pretty much a defunct database system for this company that has ceased to exist in its previous form. The Department's involvement in this is quite interesting. The Department asked Pobal to undertake some work. How much has the Department spent to date on the scoping exercise, which the Department commissioned Pobal to undertake, relating to a potential database similar to that offered by Benefacts?