Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 27 May 2015
65. Deputy Michael McGrath asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the number of staff employed in the Irish Government Economic and Evaluation Service at the end of December 2012, December 2013, December 2014, and currently; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20940/15]
View answer66. Deputy Michael McGrath asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the annual cost of the Irish Government Economic and Evaluation Service in each year from 2012 to 2014; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20941/15]
View answer67. Deputy Michael McGrath asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he will provide a list of the projects and proposals on which the Irish Government Economic and Evaluation Service has provided advice and analysis to Government Departments and agencies, in each year from 2012 to 2014 and in 2015 to date; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20942/15]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 65 to 67, inclusive, together.
I refer the Deputy, in the first instance, to a recently published report on the Irish Government Economic and Evaluation Service (IGEES), which is available on my Department's website and on the IGEES web site http://igees.gov.ie. This report, which covers the period 2012 to 2014, will provide the Deputy with information on how the Service is being developed. The report explains the corporate oversight and management structures, the approach to resourcing and the strategic objectives of the new service.
The IGEES model involves units embedded in each Government department, and each Department meets the costs of the unit from within its existing resources. The costs are almost entirely related to pay - for existing qualified economic staff who have been reassigned to IGEES units and for newly recruited graduate staff - and it forms part of each Department's overall pay allocation as presented in the Revised Estimates Volume. Building up the expert capacity to staff IGEES units has involved Departments prioritising IGEES resourcing and assigning existing funding to meet the cost of bringing in newly skilled graduates. There is no separate, annual budget for IGEES. There has been a considerable build up of staffing in the IGEES units across Government departments in the period 2012 to 2014, combining new recruitment with existing expert staff, increasing from just over 30 in 2012, to over 50 in 2013 and around 70 in 2014. The Service is still in expansion mode, with new units in the course of being established in a number Departments, and with new staff being assigned to existing units.
Regarding outputs from IGEES, the staff assigned across Government departments contribute to policy-making in their parent Departments across a wide range of areas, including in economic analysis and forecasting, VfM and expenditure reviews, tax and expenditure policy, climate change, transport economics, agriculture economics and cost-benefit analysis. The IGEES website (http://igees.gov.ie/) presents a range of analytical and statistical outputs from the service.
