Results 1-20 of 174 for speaker:Shay Brennan

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)

Shay Brennan: I thank the Minister and Minister of State for attending and for their preparation and statements, and I extend the same to their departmental colleagues. My first question is for the Minister of State, Deputy Higgins. With regard to Vote 39 and Vote 43, which concern Government procurement and IT services, why are the costs of these not charged back to the relevant Departments?

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)

Shay Brennan: I have a question on a similar topic for the Minister, Deputy Chambers. Vote 18 is on the National Shared Services Office and most of it does not seem to be charged back but the HR section does appear to be charged back. What is the consideration behind that?

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)

Shay Brennan: On the same Vote, Deputy Nash mentioned robotics here. I am curious what that actually means. Is that mechanical robotics being used to pack envelopes, etc? If so, then why is there not a similar line for processes automated by software or AI?

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)

Shay Brennan: That makes sense. I presume there is nothing that the Minister can tell us about Vote 15. My only comment is that I have been doing these Revised Estimates in committee for a couple of weeks now and I know everything else goes up year on year but the allocation for this Vote has not gone up year on year.

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)

Shay Brennan: Is there anything else the Minister wants to tell us about secret service? Okay. Vote 11 is the main one and we can see that the number of public service employees rose steadily. The latest confirmed figure in the Revised Estimates 2023 is 397,000 employees. Does the Minister have projections for this over the coming years?

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)

Shay Brennan: The broad composition of capital expenditure is split between economic and social. I see that is reasonably steady over the past three years reported. Is that a policy target?

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)

Shay Brennan: I have a brief final question.

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)

Shay Brennan: The World Bank aggregate indicator of Government effectiveness has a 94th percentile. That seems pretty good. What is that measuring the effectiveness 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)

Shay Brennan: I thank the Minister and the Minister of State. I have only three or four questions. They are focused on the new infrastructure division within the Department. It is a move I very much welcome. In light of ongoing, or recent anyway, value-for-money concerns, what measures are the Department and the division taking to ensure public spending remains within the agreed ceilings? I am...

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)

Shay Brennan: The Minister mentioned the industry experts who are being seconded to the division. What is the selection process? What mechanism is in place to ensure they have the correct expertise for this role?

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)

Shay Brennan: The individuals who have been seconded to the infrastructure division. My understanding is they are coming from the likes of State agencies such as Uisce Éireann. What mechanism is in place to ensure their expertise is effectively integrated into the Department? How were these individuals selected in the first place? Are they headhunted or is there an application process or a list 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)

Shay Brennan: The final question relates to capital. Given Ireland's comparatively low debt-to-GDP ratio, even the adjusted one, we have plenty of headroom to borrow to front-load infrastructure. That is a prudent thing to do given we need the infrastructure now to close up the deficit and given how, if correctly applied, this infrastructure should more than repay the Exchequer over time. I am wondering...

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)

Shay Brennan: Going back to value for money, I might draw on a project in my constituency to illustrate this, but I am making a broader point. I have referred to it in the infrastructure committee also. It has been much debated over the past decade that the Luas green line needs to be upgraded to a full metro. The infrastructure is there to do it. The underlying system was built to take an upgrade to a...

Select Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 27 - International Co-operation (Revised)
Vote 28 - Foreign Affairs (Revised) (24 Jun 2025)

Shay Brennan: I thank the Cathaoirleach and the Tánaiste. I want to focus entirely on Vote 28, if I may, and go through some of the details on that. I had a series of questions but the Tánaiste's very detailed brief answered a lot of those for me. I thank him and his officials for that. If it makes sense, maybe we will just do a quick over-and-back. I am conscious of the time. I think I...

Select Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 27 - International Co-operation (Revised)
Vote 28 - Foreign Affairs (Revised) (24 Jun 2025)

Shay Brennan: Okay. That makes sense. Moving to section 9 under administration, €10 million is allocated for the EU Presidency. I will ask the same question I asked at the finance committee. That allocation is a nice round number, which suggests that not a huge amount of planning has gone into it yet. While that is understandable at this stage, where is the bulk of that €10 million...

Select Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 27 - International Co-operation (Revised)
Vote 28 - Foreign Affairs (Revised) (24 Jun 2025)

Shay Brennan: I have two follow-on questions. First, is the Department of foreign affairs bearing the brunt of that cost or will other Departments also be involved in that regard? I notice they also have line items related to the EU Presidency.

Select Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 27 - International Co-operation (Revised)
Vote 28 - Foreign Affairs (Revised) (24 Jun 2025)

Shay Brennan: When the Minister says the bulk of the €10 million will be spent on additional staff costs, this is clearly a one-off situation. Therefore, will those staff be temporary?

Select Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 27 - International Co-operation (Revised)
Vote 28 - Foreign Affairs (Revised) (24 Jun 2025)

Shay Brennan: Okay. I see that staff numbers from 2024 to what is projected for 2025 will go up by approximately 380. I am guessing that is related to the trade function amalgamating with the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Select Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 27 - International Co-operation (Revised)
Vote 28 - Foreign Affairs (Revised) (24 Jun 2025)

Shay Brennan: In the same section, under promoting Ireland in line A11, there is an increase of approximately €4 million. Is that entirely related to the Expo in Japan?