Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Ministers, Deputies Varadkar and Ross, have made very clear that there will be no change to the availability of the free travel scheme. The report that gave rise to this debate was one that was put in place many years ago. We did not change that scheme at the very depth of the economic difficulty the country faced and it will not be changed now.

The Deputy asked me how the policy area will be agreed. It will be mutually agreed between me and the Minister leading the other Department. There has not been any dissent to date in terms of selection so we have not had to get to a point of enforcing the selection of a particular policy area. There has been a happy meeting of minds on selection. The Deputy asked about new policies and innovation. We are conducting this review to discover if there are savings that are possible to identify and that will allow new services to be delivered. The Deputy made reference to the fact that expenditure on public services has been reduced. It was reduced in response to the horrific crisis the country faced. We exited a bailout programme and we are increasing public expenditure year on year but we are looking to do it in a way that delivers better public services.

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