Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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27. To ask the Taoiseach the system used by his Department for dealing with correspondence. [12831/18]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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My Department receives significant volumes of correspondence. All correspondence received is acknowledged and most correspondence receives a further substantive reply. Depending on the nature of a particular item of correspondence, it may be brought to my attention or to the attention of staff within my Department.

Oftentimes, correspondence which is initially received by my Department necessitates collaboration with another Department.

In many cases this can take the form of a request for its observations on a draft reply or, in some instances, my Department provides information to another Department to facilitate it in formulating an appropriate response within a reasonable timeframe.

A full record of the journey that a particular item of correspondence travels is maintained and all responses are stored in an electronic system, which includes detailed search capabilities for retrieval of correspondence at a later point.

To achieve this, my Department uses a system known as eCorrespondence, an application offered under the "build to share" work programme of the public service ICT strategy.

My Department worked closely with the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer, OGCIO, as part of a project team to agree a common set of user requirements upon which the eCorrespondence system was designed.

The objective of the project team was to provide a solution which encompassed the required functionalities associated with the receipt, acknowledgement, reply and tracking of all correspondence and to provide this in such a way that it could become a common solution across all Departments over time.

The eCorrespondence system has been operational in my Department since June 2017 and replaced a number of disparate systems which had been deployed prior to that date.

One learns something new every day.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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The Taoiseach said a substantive response is usually given to any correspondence his Department receives within an appropriate time. I have a specific question about a piece of correspondence dealing with a serious matter. It relates to a whistleblower whose story and the issue he brought to public attention featured in a "Prime Time Investigates" programme in 2015. It involved a company called Eurosurgical which was subsequently wound up with big tax liabilities. The company was exposed as having given gifts to procurement managers in 13 different hospitals to manipulate the tendering process and to get contracts to sell surgical equipment to those hospitals. It was very serious stuff. It was exposed and brought to public attention by a whistleblower who formerly worked for that company.

That whistleblower has requested some assistance from the Minister for Health. A journalist who helped break the story wrote to the Taoiseach on 31 October last to point out that the whistleblower has been blackballed ever since then. He cannot get a job anywhere in the private health sector because he blew the whistle. The whistleblower legislation does not apply retrospectively and it was passed after he had blown the whistle and done the State a service on a very serious matter. The State has offered the guy nothing and he cannot get a job. A letter was sent to the Taoiseach's Department and to the Minister for Health asking that they give this whistleblower some support and assistance. He has even spoken about going into the witness protection programme because of a fear of intimidation and retaliation. I ask the Taoiseach to look into this correspondence and to have the decency to respond in a serious manner to a whistleblower who has done the State a service.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Central to the handling of correspondence is that emails should be preserved and should use official addresses. Has the Taoiseach used a private email for public business? If he has, what security measures has he taken and does he preserve and make emails available to the freedom of information officer in his Department? Can he give us a 100% assurance that his private emails have been made available if required for freedom of information purposes?

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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The Office of the Government Chief Information Officer is a relatively new but important office in the State administration. It is important that it is resourced. It is hard to get people of the calibre we need in the public service who are competent in this field. I ask the Taoiseach to reflect on the needs of that office and to ensure it is properly resourced and staffed.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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On the last matter, I certainly will reflect on it. I am aware of the office and I know it has to prove much new software and ICT programmes for the Government, but I am not as knowledgeable as I ought to be. I will certainly accept Deputy Howlin's suggestion in that regard. He was involved in much of that work when he was Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform.

As regards the correspondence mentioned by Deputy Boyd Barrett, I will look it up as it has not crossed my desk. I remember the case he mentioned because I was Minister for Health when that story broke. I will take a look at the correspondence, although I am not sure there is anything we can do to assist somebody to get employment.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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The Taoiseach could give him a reference.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I never give a reference to somebody I do not know. It is my general practice not to give references to people I do not know and that is not always well received in my constituency clinic.

With regard to email, I have a number of email accounts. I have had an Oireachtas email account for ten or 11 years, which is used mainly for constituency correspondence. I have a Department email account which changes as I move from Department to Department. I also have a personal email account. It is my practice to use them for their intended purpose - my personal email for personal use, my Department email for departmental use and the Oireachtas email for Oireachtas use. Needless to say, however, on occasion I have to use the personal email, such as when the system is down or when I do not have my work telephone with me and only have a personal telephone. In some cases, and I believe the Deputy is referring one such case, people who I have known since before I became Taoiseach email me on a business matter to my personal email account. I follow my Department's email policy, which I signed off on last October. Where a personal email is used I make sure it is forwarded to somebody who has a Department of the Taoiseach address, which is how it appears for freedom of information, or I forward it myself or produce a hard copy. That is how to ensure it is public record and can be released under freedom of information. That is in line with the email policy which I signed last October.