Alex White (Dublin South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies. There is always a very important debate to be had about which elements of public services, if any, should be outsourced to the private sector, and which should continue to be carried out directly by the public sector. This issue arises in all kinds of areas, as the Deputy rightly says. Education is still principally carried out and funded directly by the State. I accept that there is controversy in some areas of health care. Assessment sometimes has to be made as to whether it is more efficient for services to be provided by the private sector on contract to the State, or for the State services to provide them directly. We have seen it the areas of public transport and, in my own area of responsibility, telecommunications and broadband. These issues come up all the time.

My own view, for what it is worth, is that we should address these issues on a case-by-case basis. A strong case should have to be made when a public service previously provided directly by the State would in future be provided by the private sector on some form of contract. That case should have to be made; it should not be the default position or anything like it. However, I believe there are services which it is appropriate to outsource, and this is likely to be one of them.

This type of contract is essentially a self-contained process of design and implementation of a postcodes project. It is appropriate that it should be contracted to an expert company in order to deliver it in circumstances where there is a strong hold on how the matter is done.

Obviously, this has a statutory basis and the State is ultimately responsible for ensuring it is carried out correctly. One of the things the State is certainly responsible for is to ensure there are adequate protections in regard to data. As to the value to the State, as I mentioned earlier, once sales reach a certain level, there is to be a gainshare mechanism in terms of the value to the State. However, the most important value to the State and the wider community is the multiplier effect for individual citizens, for the implementation and efficient provision of public services, in particular the emergency services, which I mentioned earlier, and for business and economic activity generally. I expect there will be a very significant multiplier effect and this will bring huge value to us all.

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