Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this question. A key focus of the review of the national development plan, NDP, is on the capability and capacity of the public service to deliver the ambitious targets for investment that are set out in the plan. Building on recent reforms such as the update of the public spending code, this Government has initiated a suite of reforms to strengthen the assurance arrangements and public sector capability to deliver the NDP. The phase 1 report of the NDP review published by my Department in April includes an analysis of public sector capacity constraints in investment delivery. The analysis notes that even when functioning at maximum efficiency, the public sector has the capacity to deliver a limited amount of investment in any given year regardless of how much funding is made available. All investment typically requires administration, appraisal, planning, design, procurement, etc. All of these processes take time and expertise. Delivery capacity is relatively fixed in the short term, which naturally limits the ability to ramp up public investment in the short term.

It is possible to develop and step-up the capacity of the public sector over the medium term through reallocation of resources, training, upskilling, knowledge-sharing and recruitment of additional staff and expertise to build delivery capacity. That is where my focus will be in the review of the national development plan. Money is not always the key constraint. It is the ability to get things done and to deliver projects through what can be a cumbersome and slow progress. We are bringing in a range of reforms. A range of measures are in train to increase public sector delivery capacity over the medium term, including the establishment of a commercial skills academy, the public infrastructure network, the expansion of the Irish Government Economic and Evaluation Service, an EU-funded independent report on the capacity of the public sector to deliver capital projects, and a range of reforms of planning, including the establishment of a new planning and environmental court. I have announced a number of reforms to enhance the external assurance in respect of the delivery of major capital projects to make sure that we get it right and deliver value for taxpayers' money.

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