Results 21-40 of 3,505 for speaker:Emer Higgins

Seanad: Statute Law Revision Bill 2024: [Seanad Bill amended by the Dáil] Report and Final Stages (16 Jul 2025)

Emer Higgins: I thank everybody who has worked on this Bill. An awful lot of work went into this and it has been ongoing for a number of years. I thank all of the officials in the Department who have worked on it, as well as officials in the Law Reform Commission, who have given a lot of their time. Blood, sweat and tears went into this. It has been a huge insight into history as well. It is really...

Ministers and Secretaries (Attorney General) Bill 2023: Second Stage [Private Members] (3 Jul 2025)

Emer Higgins: I thank the speakers who have contributed. We all agree that the State should act in the public interest, broadly construed, in pursuing litigation and should consider the broader public interest before taking certain procedural steps in litigation. This is the reason the Government approved the adoption of State litigation principles two years ago. They serve as guidelines in the conduct...

Ministers and Secretaries (Attorney General) Bill 2023: Second Stage [Private Members] (3 Jul 2025)

Emer Higgins: I think it is here. Is it not here?

Ministers and Secretaries (Attorney General) Bill 2023: Second Stage [Private Members] (3 Jul 2025)

Emer Higgins: I am so sorry.

Ministers and Secretaries (Attorney General) Bill 2023: Second Stage [Private Members] (3 Jul 2025)

Emer Higgins: Somebody can provide that. In the meantime, do you want to photocopy my one?

Ministers and Secretaries (Attorney General) Bill 2023: Second Stage [Private Members] (3 Jul 2025)

Emer Higgins: I thank the Deputies for giving me the opportunity to discuss the Government’s position on Second Stage of this Private Members’ Bill, the Ministers and Secretaries (Attorney General) Bill 2023. At the outset, I remind Deputies, as Deputy Bacik has done, that the Attorney General is a constitutional officer appointed by the President on the recommendation of the Taoiseach under...

Transparency and Social Value in Public Procurement Bill 2024: Second Stage [Private Members] (26 Jun 2025)

Emer Higgins: I thank Deputies for their engagement on the Bill and in particular Deputy Farrell who worked on it. It has been useful to have the opportunity to discuss public procurement on the floor of the Dáil, important considerations for it and how the Government can ensure better services for the people who come here to live and work and who are born and live here. It is important that we make...

Transparency and Social Value in Public Procurement Bill 2024: Second Stage [Private Members] (26 Jun 2025)

Emer Higgins: I move amendment No. 1: To delete all words after “That” and substitute the following: “Dail Eireann resolves that the Transparency and Social Value in Public Procurement (Bill 2024) be read a second time this day 24 months, to allow for consideration of the complex legal issues in the Bill and how they interact with the Companies Act 2014 and the EU’s eForms...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 11 - Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation (Revised)
Vote 12 - Superannuation and Retired Allowances (Revised)
Vote 14 - State Laboratory (Revised)
Vote 15 - Secret Service (Revised)
Vote 17 - Public Appointments Service (Revised)
Vote 18 - National Shared Services Office (Revised)
Vote 19 - Office of the Ombudsman (Revised)
Vote 39 - Office of Government Procurement (Revised)
Vote 43 - Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (Revised) (25 Jun 2025)

Emer Higgins: This is my second time before this committee. I thank members for their collaboration thus far but I do not think we will be quite as quick as we were the last time. Vote 39 covers the Office of Government Procurement, OGP. Procurement is a key element of the Government’s public service reform agenda. The State procures goods, services and works costing in the region of...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 11 - Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation (Revised)
Vote 12 - Superannuation and Retired Allowances (Revised)
Vote 14 - State Laboratory (Revised)
Vote 15 - Secret Service (Revised)
Vote 17 - Public Appointments Service (Revised)
Vote 18 - National Shared Services Office (Revised)
Vote 19 - Office of the Ombudsman (Revised)
Vote 39 - Office of Government Procurement (Revised)
Vote 43 - Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (Revised) (25 Jun 2025)

Emer Higgins: It depends. In terms of sourcing, they often are. If the Deputy can imagine it, we have two different wings of the Office of Government Procurement. One is in relation to policy and one in relation to sourcing. From a policy perspective, our officials work to devise frameworks, guidelines, circulars and a lot of support for Government Departments and agencies to be able to understand the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation (25 Jun 2025)

Emer Higgins: I thank the Deputy. We have had really positive engagement with SMEs over the last number of months. At the moment, we are devising our first ever national public procurement strategy. The prequel to that was making sure that we had all of the right feedback from all of the right sectors, so we launched an online survey and reached out to many businesses through their business...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation (25 Jun 2025)

Emer Higgins: Absolutely. I do not know how brief I can be on this.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation (25 Jun 2025)

Emer Higgins: Absolutely. As the Deputy may be aware, the Government is investing into apps. The first is the HSE healthcare app, which has been launched in the last months. My team in the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer worked with the HSE to get it to the point where it successfully launched that. That is being rolled out. It is particularly aimed at women going through the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation (25 Jun 2025)

Emer Higgins: I am happy to take that. Digitalisation is a huge part of what the Government is focused on at the moment. We have recently rolled out our new AI guidelines for all public and civil servants to show people that we are here to help them embrace new technologies and use them to ultimately make better decisions. However, we are doing that in a way that always puts the human at the centre of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation (25 Jun 2025)

Emer Higgins: I cannot answer as to whether other Departments have allocated funding for this but it is very much on the agenda. There are monthly meetings with the Department of children on this and it is looking at it because equality comes under that. Our Department, through our officials from the Office of Government Procurement and in the OCGIO, is very much involved in it. I recently met with...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation (25 Jun 2025)

Emer Higgins: I thank the Senator for those questions and his interest in this topic. His first question was regarding the policy decisions that are made in the Office of Government Procurement and whether they are in law. It depends. We have EU legislation that we have transposed into Irish law. In that case, it is absolutely a legal requirement. Then we have other circulars, which Cabinet will have...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation (25 Jun 2025)

Emer Higgins: That is legally challenging for us to do but, at the same time, we highlight companies where we feel they have been really good in this space. That is a bonus and we would encourage people to work with them. There is EU law when it comes to this so we have to be very careful to make sure we do not put out any advice that could be defamatory either from the Office of Government Procurement...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation (25 Jun 2025)

Emer Higgins: For the well-being index?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation (25 Jun 2025)

Emer Higgins: We do not publish that. We do publish our guidelines around it. For example, we will have new green public procurement guidelines, which we hope to get approved by Cabinet in the next month or so. That is what we publish, as opposed to the outcomes. While we are monitoring it, we feed a lot of that into the strategy, which we are currently devising as well.