Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

As the Deputy is aware, an independent panel has been established to carry out a review. It is usually the case that reviews ongoing in Departments involve existing personnel from other Departments coming in. There is quite a fair level of engagement with the staff in respect of how organisational programmes are worked through.

The Minister for Finance established an independent panel to review his Department. His decision was announced on 10 September. The panel is chaired by Mr. Rob Wright who has 35 years of economic, policy and management experience in the public service of Canada, more than 20 of which was at the level of what we could call Secretary General. Most recently, Mr. Wright served as Deputy Minister of Finance in Canada. The second member of the panel is Mr. Hans Borstlap, who has considerable experience in the Dutch public administration system, including holding the position of director general at the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment and membership of the advisory board of the Dutch National Bank. He also gained significant experience at EU level as Chairman of the Employment and Labour Market Committee. He is currently a member of the Council of State and provides advice to the Government on the annual budget in this role. The third member is Mr. John Malone, a former Secretary General of the Department of Agriculture and Food. Mr. Pat McArdle, an economist, provides support and assistance to the panel. The panel is assisted in its work by a secretariat provided by the Department.

The independent panel has been asked to carry out a comprehensive evaluation of the systems, structures and processes relating to those elements of budgetary, economic, financial and public service management that are relevant to its role. I expect it to report quite soon.

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