Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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My Department drives reform using its role and functions to enhance governance, build capacity and deliver effectively, working with the full range of public service bodies to build a more unified and agile public service. Progress in delivering on public service reform programmes is assessed centrally, on a regular basis, in line with established monitoring and evaluation processes. All Departments are responsible for assessing public service reform programmes within their remits.

Better Public Services is the government’s overarching public service transformation strategy to 2030 to deliver for the public and build trust. The vision of the strategy is to deliver inclusive, high quality and integrated public services that meet the needs and improves the lives of the people of Ireland. The pillars of the strategy are; digital and innovation at scale; workforce and organisation of the future, and; evidence-informed policy and services designed for and with our public. The recent Better Public Services Transformation Showcase 2025-2026 publication, is available on gov.ie and highlights the work taking place across the public service to drive public service transformation. The Showcase looks back at transformation achievements delivered in 2025 and sets out 2026 transformation priorities. It covers Better Public Services flagship programmes which are led by my Department and a snapshot of some of the many transformation projects happening across the wider public service.

Individual government policies and programmes lay out targets, indicators and approaches to monitoring and evaluation, towards delivery. For example the Digital Public Services Plan is the Government's roadmap for delivering seamless, inclusive and user-centred public services through digital transformation. It sets targets that by 2030, 100% of key public services will be available online; and, 90% of applicable services will be consumed digitally. Progress towards these targets is tracked regularly.

As part of normal budgetary processes, each year government departments set out public service performance and equality targets for the forthcoming year in the Revised Estimated Volume for the Public Services. This includes output metrics directly related to each Strategic Programme’s policies and programmes as well as outcome metrics that describe progress in relation to policy goals or objectives. The Public Service Performance Report, published by my Department, provides an annual review of the delivery of public services against commitments. The Report provides a clear and accessible picture of how public funds have been allocated, how those funds have been used and the impact of this on public spending. All of the Performance Reports are published on my Department’s website

Rankings compiled by organisations nationally and internationally such as CSO, OECD and the European Commission also provide information on performance, benchmarking and inform the identification of areas of strength and where there is a need for improved productivity and performance across the public service.

Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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While the type of segmented data requested on utilisation rates of digital public services from 2023-2025 would primarily be retained within the Department or Public Body with responsibility for providing a particular service, national statistics on the provision of digital public services are available from the Digital Decade Country Reports published annually by the European Commission.

These show that Ireland is performing well on the 'Availability of Digital Public Services (DPS) for Citizens' metric, which is measured as the share of administrative steps that can be completed fully online for 7 life events (Family, Career, Studying, Health, Transport, Moving, and Starting a Small Claims Procedure). Results indicate that between 2023 and 2025 the availability of these online public services has increased from 81% to 91%, which is above the EU average of 85%.

To drive progress on an expanded set of key public services that cover 17 major life events, my Department published the Digital Public Services Plan 2030 in November 2025, which sets out a roadmap for the delivery of seamless, inclusive, and user-centred public services. Implementation of this Plan is underpinned by a strong programme of work ongoing across all Departments to realise the benefits of the digital and AI transition to deliver improvement for citizens in a way that is financially sustainable, and to put in place effective means of collating system-wide information on digital delivery.

A central component of the Plan is the Life Events Approach, which reimagines public services around key milestones in citizens’ lives (such as becoming a parent, starting school, accessing housing, or retiring). This model will integrate 189 services into the 17 priority life events that will be the focus of collaborative design work to enable more use-friendly and efficient service provision across Government between 2026 and 2030.

To support this process and ensure consistency in monitoring standards, a centralised system for gathering information on the implementation of the plan, including the availability and utilisation rates of online services, is being developed and rolled out in this the first year of implementation of the Plan.

By redesigning services around citizens' life events rather than organisational boundaries, the Plan aims to deliver more integrated, efficient and responsive public services that improve value for money and efficiency by shifting service delivery to lower-cost digital channels, promoting reuse of common digital infrastructure, reducing duplication across public bodies, and supporting greater automation and data-driven decision-making.