Ms Caroline O'Loughlin:

I will take that question. There are a couple of layers to the answer. As I said, it is the Vote section in our Department. Because it has indepth knowledge of the work and policies in each Department, it would be the first port of call to make sure that the appropriate metrics are being selected. In our own section in performance budgeting, our role, as we said in the opening statement, is to ensure the information is clear and accessible to everybody. When information comes to us, if we do not understand it, we send it back and say it needs to be made more accessible. That would happen if there were acronyms or specific language that somebody without an indepth knowledge would not understand. Those are the different layers of quality control. Ultimately, it has to be the case that each Department has ownership of, and responsibility for, selecting its own indicators. We make sure they are informed as to the purpose of performance information and because, as Dr. Moran said, they own the policy and have the most knowledge of it, ownership has to be retained by them. They are the ones answerable to the Oireachtas committees.