Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am taking this question on behalf of the Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth, who is out of the country as well. As part of the programme for Government, Ireland is committed to re-energising its Open Government Partnership, OGP, process. The OGP aims to secure concrete commitments from governments across the world to promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption, and harness new technologies to strengthen governance. Member countries sign the OGP declaration and participate in its processes to advance the principles of transparency, integrity, accountability, and stakeholder participation. A key element of the partnership is the co-creation and monitoring of commitments by Government with civil society representatives.

During 2021, the Department established Ireland's Open Government Partnership round table, made up of representatives from the public service and from civil society. This round table works collaboratively to ensure a consistent, value-adding and meaningful approach to the co-creation of national action plans, containing concrete commitments advancing the OGP agenda, and monitoring their subsequent implementation. Commitments contained in open government national action plans are prepared for agreement by Government after consultation by the round table with civil society, citizens and policy owners from Government Departments and public bodies.

On 8 March this year, the Department launched a public consultation to encourage members of the public and civil society organisations to submit their ideas for Ireland’s fourth open government national action plan. The round table identified four key thematic areas: transparency; participative democracy; public access to government data; and strengthening public trust.

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