Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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401.To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he will report on the implementation of the programme for Government commitments under the remit of his Department.[34014/24]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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There are a significant number of commitments in the Programme for Government which are assigned to my Department. A large amount of useful information on the work of my Department, including in respect of these commitments, is contained in the Department's Annual Report for 2023, which was published in June 2024 and is available on the gov.ie website.

Some of the progress to-date on these Programme for Government commitments includes:

• Boosting job creation and retention through the National Recovery and Resilience Plan in 2020, 2021 and 2022. This included infrastructure development, reskilling and retraining and supporting investment;
• The National Development Plan was published in 2021 and set out €165 billion in capital expenditure. The distribution of an additional €2.25 billion in capital funding out to 2026 was agreed in March 2024;
• As part of Budgets 2023 and 2024, a number of measures were examined which relate to additional capacity and the implementation of Sláintecare across the dimensions of access, quality and affordability;
• The new public service agreement was negotiated in January this year. It is a two and half year agreement and runs to the end of June 2026. The agreement will ensure continued support for the delivery of the Government’s key national reform plans, strategies and frameworks;
• The Better Public Services - Public Service Transformation 2030 Strategy was published in May 2023;
• The Office of Government Procurement (OGP), which is a Division of my Department, has updated all of its Framework Agreements in line with green procurement practice, where it is permissible to do so by the Procurement Regulations and feasible to do so in terms of market capabilities;
• Digital for Good: Ireland’s Digital Inclusion Roadmap was published in August 2023 and meets a commitment in the National Digital Strategy and reflects Connecting Government: A Digital and ICT Strategy for Ireland’s Public Service which was published in 2022;
• The Equality Budgeting Programme was expanded and all Departments now report Equality metrics alongside financial allocations in the Revised Estimates Volume (REV) and the Public Service Performance Report (PSPR) on an annual basis;
• My Department undertook a review of the current statutory framework for Ethics in public life, which was completed in December 2022. The Report was submitted to Government and published in February 2023. Drafting of legislation is ongoing; and
• The Protected Disclosures (Amendment) Bill 2022 was signed into law on 21 July 2022 and commenced operation on 1 January 2023. The amended Act gave effect to Directive (EU) 2019/1937 (“the Whistleblowing Directive”) and provided for the establishment of a new Office of the Protected Disclosures Commissioner (OPDC) within the Office of the Ombudsman.