Joe McHugh (Donegal North East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Ar dtús, ba mhaith liom aitheantas a thabhairt don Seanadóir as ucht an Ghaeilge a úsáid ar dtús fosta. Gabhaim míle buíochas leis. I thank Senator Barrett for raising this issue, which I am taking on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin, who is not available this afternoon due to Government business.

The Irish Government Economic and Evaluation Service, IGEES, was established in 2012. The introduction of the new service was part of the broader expenditure reform agenda launched by the Minister, Deputy Howlin. It is an integrated cross-Government service to enhance the role of economics and value-for-money analysis in policy making and demonstrates a strong commitment to a high and consistent standard of policy evaluation and policy analysis throughout the Civil Service. The purpose of IGEES is to enhance the evaluation and economic capacity of the Civil Service. Its first objective is to develop a professional service that will provide good quality analysis to assist Government, its second objective is that it aims to support better policy design and its third objective is that it works towards more open policy dialogue with expert stakeholders.

IGEES is spread across the central Government sector. It operates within a large number of Government Departments, each of which have specific units or sections that are focused on economic and/or evaluation work. In some Departments, evaluation or economic units were already in place prior to the establishment of IGEES. These have typically either been expanded or are planned to be expanded as part of developing the new service. In other Departments, new units have been set up. Building on existing specialised expertise in Government Departments, there have already been three successful recruitment campaigns since 2012 to augment this capacity. There will also be annual recruitment campaigns to sustain and develop the service. These intakes of qualified economists and evaluators will help ensure the service meets its long-term objectives. There are now approximately 90 IGEES members working across the Civil Service.

IGEES members work on core areas of government, including the budget and macroeconomic forecasting. IGEES members developed the public spending code - the value-for-money standards for public expenditure - and are actively involved in promoting the code. IGEES units in Departments across the Civil Service are already delivering a range of analytical and statistical outputs. The entire range of different analyses is published by individual Departments and also on the IGEES website at . These analyses include: programme evaluations: cross-cutting reviews: economic analysis: tax expenditure reviews; and sectoral trend analysis. Some examples of recently published papers include: A Strategic Framework for Investment in Land Transport - Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport; A Fact Sheet on Irish Agriculture - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine; Behavioural Economics - Department of Public Expenditure and Reform; Expenditure Implications of Demographic Change in the Primary and Post-Primary Sectors - Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.

Departments which are involved in IGEES follow shared approaches to recruitment, promotion and mobility for their IGEES staff. Under the leadership of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, they have also jointly developed a standardised professional development framework and a strong programme of training and development opportunities. In addition, the IGEES network and annual conference provide important opportunities for members to present and discuss their work with colleagues from other Government Departments, as well as academics and specialists.

IGEES is particularly important to support programme evaluation across the Civil Service. The growing capacity of IGEES will play a central role in delivering a new series of expenditure evaluations under the value-for-money review initiative as the previous round comes to a close. The initiative is a long-standing feature of the evaluation landscape in Ireland. It requires Departments to systematically examine and review spending programmes to ensure that they are working efficiently and effectively. The overall objective of the reviews is to inform spending decisions. Value-for-money reviews are regularly published by Departments and laid before the Oireachtas. During the next three years, a new programme of reviews covering well over 30 different programme areas will be carried out. The results of these reviews will help underpin the next comprehensive review of expenditure.

The recent such review built on the work of IGEES staff across Departments and in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. A range of background analyses and papers that were undertaken by IGEES as part of that review were published. The output of IGEES is available to inform policy makers, public debate and Parliament. The Minister, Deputy Howlin, introduced the whole-of-year budgetary process so that the Oireachtas could engage in constructive dialogue with Ministers and their officials about spending plans and priorities. To do this, it is important that the Oireachtas has timely, coherent and relevant information. A significant volume of information has been made available to committees through the performance budgeting initiative.In addition, the range of evaluations undertaken and published by Departments, often using their IGEES resources, provide further evidence to help the Oireachtas assess public policy options.