Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I fully agree with the Deputy that monitoring is vital, although it is not done by my Department but by a monitoring committee, including the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste. It is a whole-of-Government approach to monitoring. As they say in the United States, biting with the president's teeth is very important in delivering performance across all the silos.

This year we have had discussions with the OECD to see how we can better develop this process and ensure that not only are we delivering it, but are also getting good outcomes. As we discussed at the Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, we will be examining a wider range of outcome indicators as well as the headlines one of jobs and rankings in terms of a good place to do business. We are seeking to develop that so that across the sub-sectors and various elements of the plan we are seen to be making progress. That becomes a feedback loop to inform better decisions.

If anything was missed in 2012 because we could not achieve it, we sought to discover why. We thus changed the target. Not everything achieves all that is hoped for. If it did we would be living in a strange world. We therefore modify targets based on experience, but we always seek to stretch the targets.

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