Dr. Patrick Moran:

I might answer that one. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of Departments to select and report which metrics they are going to include because they have policy responsibility and the expertise in the policy. We review the reports when they come in and work with the Departments to try to improve them over time.

In terms of the process around working back from the overarching policy goal that needs to be achieved, what sorts of outcomes you can measure that through and what outputs or lower level metrics give a sense of how those outputs are shaping up, it is something that every Department has to do itself. The process around Oireachtas scrutiny, through the sectoral committees, is instrumental in bringing forward a conversation around how good or bad the metrics are and whether they really reflect and characterise what the core outputs of the Department should be. It is meant to be an iterative process so that every year, they are revisited again in terms of improving. I take the Deputy's point around the variation across the different Departments.