Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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Question 52: To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he will provide examples of reasonable co-payment mechanisms to offset in part costs associated with the delivery of public services, as proposed by his Secretary General in a recent memorandum to Department heads with regard to the comprehensive spending review. [20336/11]

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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My Department has not been prescriptive in setting out specific examples of co-payment mechanisms that are expected to be considered by individual Departments and their agencies as part of their overall Review of Expenditure in each area. However there are a wide range of possible mechanisms. For illustrative purposes, Departments may be able to identify new sources of funding for their activities through levies or tolls that can be reasonably applied in the markets for the activities.

Rather than commit expenditure upfront, public bodies may be able to partner with the private sector to make the upfront investments in return for a reasonable application of some form of gain-share model. Public bodies may be able to introduce differentiated administrative charges or rates for services dependent on the channel used by the customer – in other words, self-service or electronic channels may be free or lowest cost whereas staffed or manual channels may attract an administrative fee or higher service charges to assist the public service defray the cost to the taxpayer. There is no ubiquitously correct model which is why we have asked Departments and public body to consider every possible option.

Question No. 53 answered with Question No.34.