Written Answers Nos. 224-238
224. Deputy Patrick Costello asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform the status of the proposed walking and cycling bridge across the River Liffey from the War Memorial Gardens, Islandbridge; if funding has been assigned to the project; if so, the amount; the proposed timeline for works to commence; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33521/23]
View answerThe Office of Public Works continues to work with consultants, Ian Ritchie Architects, to complete the necessary documentation to submit a planning application for a new commemorative bridge and entrance plaza at the Irish National War Memorial Gardens and Conyngham Road.
Due to the environmental sensitivities of the location, an extensive Flood Risk Assessment and Section 50 Application is currently being carried out by consultants for the OPW.
All other baseline studies have been completed including the Feasibility Study, Ecological studies and a Business Development Strategy.
Funding has been approved to planning permission stage and approximately €100,000 has been spent on design consultant costs, along with the survey reports required for the planning application. A further €700,000 is allocated for projected works to bring this to planning.
It is anticipated that the OPW will tender for the construction works later in 2023.
It should be noted that Dublin City Council recently amended the local area plan for Inchicore to allow for development of this piece of infrastructure and the project is widely supported by local elected representatives, community, stakeholders and the general public.
Subject to further availability of funding, a full procurement process will be undertaken and it is hoped that works will commence on site before the end of 2024.
225. Deputy Patrick Costello asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform the status of the proposed renovation of the Magazine Fort in the Phoenix Park; if funding has been assigned to the project; if so, the amount; the proposed timeline for works to commence; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33522/23]
View answerThe Office of Public Works has appointed the main contractor to the project for the stabilisation and repair works to the Magazine Fort at the Phoenix Park. The purpose of the works is to repair and stabilise the rampart walls, the magazine store buildings, the corrugated metal building and the repair and reconstruction of the entrance archway. The expected duration of these works is 24 months. The total project budget for these works is €6.6m.
226. Deputy Catherine Murphy asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform the plans OPW have to buy lands or lease lands adjacent to Castletown house and demesne [33524/23]
View answerCastletown House is an eighteenth-century neo-Palladian country house built within an extensive estate.
In 1994, the Office of Public Works took responsibility for Castletown House and estate. Initially, this was only 13 acres of land with the house. It has long been the policy of the OPW to seek to reunite the historic Castletown estate. In 1997, one hundred acres south of the house was acquired. The farmyard adjacent to the house was acquired in 2001. In 2006, lands associated with the Batty Lodge were acquired with former Coillte lands to the north and east of the House acquired in 2007. Since 2008, the OPW has reassembled 227 acres of the original 580 acres of land which formed the historic demesne.
As part of the policy to seek to reunite the historic Castletown demesne lands with the house and lands in the care of the State, the OPW has sought on several occasions to purchase the lands from Janus Securities including when the lands were offered for sale on the open market in 2022. However, despite the very best efforts of the OPW, the State was out-bid in the open market process and ultimately, the lands were acquired by a private purchaser.
My officials continue to engage with the new owners with a view to both ensure access to the Castletown estate and to protect the future of the historic demesne.
227. Deputy Violet-Anne Wynne asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform to provide the names and contact information of all special advisers to Ministers and Ministers of State within his Department; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33588/23]
View answerSpecial Advisers to Ministers and Ministers of State may be appointed by Government in accordance with the provisions of Section 11 of the Public Service Management Act 1997.
The Advisers employed by my Department are outlined below:
|
Minister |
Special Adviser |
|
Paschal Donohoe |
Deborah Sweeney |
|
Paschal Donohoe |
Fiona O'Connor |
All special advisers and officials working in my Department can be contacted in the following ways:
Telephone: +353 1 676 7571
Email: eolas@per.gov.ie and pressoffice@per.gov.ie
228. Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform whether any tenders were issued for the planned works to the National Monument 14-17 Moore Street; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33622/23]
View answerTo date, competitive tenders have been sought for the provision of Interpretation and Exhibition design consultancy services only; the closing date in respect of this competition is 14 July 2023.
229. Deputy Brendan Smith asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform the total funding available for the new PEACE Plus Programme; the level of funding available for each measure under this Programme; the allocations decided to date for government Departments and statutory agencies; when these allocations were decided and notified to such agencies; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33684/23]
View answerI am very pleased that the new PEACEPLUS programme is now open for applications. Seven of the thematic investment areas for this cross-border EU programme have opened in recent weeks, with more opening over the weeks and months ahead.
PEACEPLUS has a total budget of c. €1.1 billion., over twice the combined value of the outgoing 2014-20 INTERREG VA and PEACE IV cross-border programmes. The new programme represents an unprecedented financial investment in support of shared peace and prosperity across the border counties of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The programme is jointly funded by the European Commission and the UK Government, with match funding providing by Government Departments in Northern Ireland and by Ireland.
PEACEPLUS is structured around six central themes, each of which is further divided into thematic investment areas. The agreed programme financial allocation for each of these areas is set out below.
|
Theme 1: Building Peaceful and Thriving Communities (€250m) |
Theme 2: Delivering Socio-Economic Regeneration and Transformation (€170m) |
Theme 3: Empowering and Investing in Our Young People (€123m) |
Theme 4: Healthy and Inclusive Communities (€172m) |
Theme 5: Supporting a Sustainable and Better Connected Future (€303m) |
Theme 6: Building and Embedding Partnership and Collaboration (€52m) |
|
1.1: Co-Designed Community Peace Action Plans (€110m) 1.2: Empowering Communities (€30m) 1.3: Building Positive Relations (€35m) 1.4: Reimaging Communities (€75m) |
2.1: SME Development and Transition (€25m) 2.2: Innovation Challenge Fund (€65m) 2.3: Programme Area Skills Development (€50m) 2.4: Smart Towns and Villages (€30m) |
3.1: Shared Learning Together Education Programme (€51.3m) 3.2: PEACEPLUS Youth Programme (€47m) 3.3: Youth Mental Health and Wellbeing (€25m) |
4.1: Collaborative Health and Social Care (€97m) 4.2: Rural Regeneration and Social Inclusion (€50m) 4.3: Victims and Survivors (€25m) |
5.1: Biodiversity, Nature Recovery and Resilience (€40m) 5.2: Marine and Coastal Management (€24.8m) 5.3: Water Quality and Catchment Management (€21m) 5.4: Water Quality Improvement Programme (€32m) 5.5: Geothermal Energy Demonstration Programme (€20m) 5.6: Enhanced Sustainable Travel Connectivity (€165m) |
6.1: Strategic Planning and Engagement (€32m) 6.2: Maintaining and Forging Relationships between Citizens (€20m) |
As calls for applications have only just opened, no funding awards have yet been made under PEACEPLUS. Funding will be awarded under each individual investment area following an independent and competitive process overseen by the Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB), which is responsible for the delivery of PEACEPLUS. Applications will be assessed against a range of agreed criteria in accordance with EU Regulations. The final decision on funding awards will be made by a cross-sectoral project selection Steering Committee, consisting of representatives of central and local government, business, trade unions, and community and voluntary, environmental, rural, equality, youth and health sector organisations from both jurisdictions.
230. Deputy Neasa Hourigan asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform the methodologies his Department will utilise within this year's budgetary process to ensure equality proofing of budgetary policies; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33698/23]
View answerIreland recently hosted a meeting of the OECD Senior Budget Officials Network on Gender Budgeting. This group meets annually to discuss developments and share good practices in relation to gender budgeting and has been a key resource to the development of Irish Equality Budgeting policy. Officials from the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform and from the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Inclusion and Youth, have actively participated in the Gender Budgeting Network since its inception.
The Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform is leading the development of a range of initiatives to enhance the level of transparency and accountability about the use of public funds through the use of Performance Budgeting. A central pillar of this is the work we are engaged in since 2017 in collaboration with all Government Departments on the development of Equality Budgeting.
Two key outputs of this process each year are the Revised Estimates Volume for the Public Services (the REV), and the Public Service Performance Report. The REV contains information on equality budgeting objectives and performance indicators from all Government Departments, and sets out targets for each of these metrics for the upcoming year. The Public Service Performance Report contains detailed information on performance against these targets, as well as trends in impact indicators over a three-year window. It also provides an update on progress towards the achievement of equality budgeting targets in the current year, which adds an important forward looking element to the reporting of results for the previous year.
We have also begun work to develop how we track public expenditure directed at improving equality outcomes, which builds on the pilot project undertaken in 2022 to develop a method of integrating expenditure tagging into the budgetary process. At present we are working with stakeholders, including the Equality Budgeting Expert Advisory Group, and the Equality Budgeting Interdepartmental Network, to refine and implement this over the course of 2023 and 2024. This is part of a wider piece of work that also encompasses well-being and climate-related spending, which will allow for mapping of expenditure across Government by the type of outcomes it is intended to bring about, and the type of inequality it is designed to address.
In addition, we are working with the Central Statistics Office and the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to contribute to the development of the National Equality Data Strategy 2023-2027 for improving the collection, disaggregation and use of equality data.
Performance Budgeting is one of a number of processes and frameworks intended to enhance our policy making process, and to improve our understanding of how new or existing measures impact different groups within society. This also includes the Irish Government Economic and Evaluation Service (IGEES) that is led by my Department, with IGEES Units spread across the civil service, and also the Spending Review process designed to advance evidence-informed policy making and the assessment of the effectiveness of public expenditure in meeting policy objectives.
The focus of the work done within the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform, therefore, is to put in place a robust performance and equality budgeting framework and support the development of evidence-informed policy making in a way that improves transparency and accountability, and provides valuable insights into public service performance for all stakeholders, including citizens, representative groups, public service bodies and the Oireachtas.
231. Deputy Neasa Hourigan asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform if he will direct his Department to provide plain English and accessible versions of all Budget 2024 documents on Budget Day this year; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33699/23]
View answerEach year, on Budget Day, my Department publishes a range of key budgetary documentation. The intention in publishing this material is to ensure that budget day announcements are accessible and transparent. This includes the Budget Expenditure Report which sets out the public expenditure strategy, expenditure allocations by Vote and the Estimates for public services. Typically a number of analytical papers are also published each year, for example in relation to Budget 2023 a forecast of live register recipients and expenditure was published, alongside a paper on the use of carbon tax funds.
Since 2019, my Department has published a citizens guide to the Budget on an annual basis. Last year it was titled: "The Budget in Brief: Your Guide to Budget 2023" This guide is aimed at the general public and explains how money will be raised and spent in the coming year. It has an easy-to-use format so that it can be used by a wide cross-section of society. The intention of the Guide is to enable people to take part in informed debate about the choices made by Government. This Guide will continue to be published alongside the more detailed expenditure allocations published with Budget 2024.
232. Deputy Neasa Hourigan asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform how a report (details supplied) will be reflected in budgetary policies in his Department for Budget 2024; what methodologies will be employed to disability proof budgetary policies within his Department for Budget 2024 and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33700/23]
View answerIn the first instance the cost of disability report should be considered an important element of the evidence base to inform the policies and priorities of relevant Departments for Budget 2024. Thereafter the report should inform the scope and focus of a successor to the national disability inclusion strategy.
The Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform is leading the development of a range of initiatives to enhance the level of transparency and accountability about the use of public funds through the use of Performance Budgeting. However it is, additionally, a matter for all Departments to consider all distributional impacts of any proposal being developed in their areas of policy responsibility.
233. Deputy Paul Kehoe asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform whether the use of cloud computing services is important in helping the Government digitalise and improve public services; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33733/23]
View answerI thank the Deputy for this question and can confirm that yes, the use of cloud computing continues to be a key and growing platform supporting the delivery of innovative, modern digital public services.
Connecting Government 2030: A Digital and ICT Strategy for Ireland’s Public Service, published in 2022, specifically notes that public service organisations will be more proactive and progressive in embracing cloud and will take a cloud-first approach to delivery of services. This is in line with the earlier Cloud Computing Advice Note , published in October 2019, which provided high-level guidance to assist organisations in making decisions in relation to the adoption of cloud services. In all cases, a move to cloud will be a business decision on the basis of specific considerations made by individual public service organisations.
In December 2021, the Office of Government Procurement (OGP) issued a Cloud Services Procurement Guidance Note to assist public sector organisations to understand and manage the key contractual and commercial considerations when procuring cloud computing services.. The OGP also plans to establish a central arrangement for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) by the end of 2023.
Of course, a cloud-first approach does not mean cloud-only. Consequently, organisations should and will take a range of considerations into account such as the risk profile of the data, where it resides, and other such issues, which may determine that use of private government cloud is most appropriate for particular circumstances.
234. Deputy David Cullinane asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform further to Parliamentary Question No. 363 of 22 June 2023, in which the Minister for Health could not answer for information in relation to medical card entitlements from Departments other than his own, if he will provide a full list of all health and non-health entitlements associated with medical cards, in tabular form; the total cost of each entitlement, by vote; the average secondary cost of a medical card; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33880/23]
View answerDue to the nature of its role, my Department does not provide services where there are any health or non-health entitlements associated with medical cards. My Department does not hold such detailed information in respect of services provided by other Departments. In this context, the Deputy may wish to submit a Parliamentary Question directly to the relevant Ministers.
235. Deputy Catherine Murphy asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform the amount surrendered back to the Exchequer in each of the years 2013 to 2022 and to date in 2023 from Vote 15, Secret Service; if he will clarify whether any requests were received for additional funds for the Vote over that same time period; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33953/23]
View answerThe following table shows the Secret Service Vote estimate and end of year surplus as set out in the Appropriation Accounts 2012 to 2023. The figure for 2022 is the provisional outturn, based on the expenditure amounts notified to this Department.
|
Year |
Estimate |
Surplus to Surrender to the Exchequer |
|
2012 |
€1,000,000 |
€485,000 |
|
2013 |
€1,000,000 |
€413,000 |
|
2014 |
€1,000,000 |
€407,000 |
|
2015 |
€1,000,000 |
€365,000 |
|
2016 |
€1,000,000 |
€317,000 |
|
2017 |
€1,000,000 |
€259,000 |
|
2018 |
€1,000,000 |
€117,000 |
|
2019 |
€1,250,000 |
€266,000 |
|
2020 |
€2,000,000 |
€932,000 |
|
2021 |
€2,000,000 |
€901,000 |
|
2022 |
€2,000,000 |
€811,000 |
|
2023 |
€2,000,000 |
N/A |
As can be seen from the table, there has been an increase in the allocation to the Secret Service Vote over the years from €1 million to €2 million.
236. Deputy Fergus O'Dowd asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform with regard to the welcome works being carried out by the OPW at Old Abbey Lane in Drogheda, if he can address concerns raised locally that works have been at a standstill for a number of weeks; and if he will provide an update on the project and expected completion dates and so on. [34051/23]
View answerIn January 2023, OPW placed a contract with Demac Construction Ltd. for a programme of works to address repairs and restore the boundary wall at Patrickswell lane, Drogheda. In consultation with Louth County Council, OPW is also satisfied to have successfully accommodated its observations in bringing the project to its current position.
The contractors programme of works has reached substantial completion as of 10th July 2023 with appropriate OPW certification. Locals will be aware that the site hoarding has been removed providing visual evidence that the works have been completed. Currently, there are temporary wooden window screens in place but these will be replaced with Corten Steel screens as soon as the contractor receives delivery of same. Based on current supplier lead times, this final element of work is expected to be completed within the next eight weeks.
237. Deputy Carol Nolan asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform if his Department or any agency under the aegis of his Department operates a ‘barter account’ for the provision of goods or services; if so, if payments have been directed to be made to a barter account during the period 2011 to date; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34153/23]
View answerI wish to advise the Deputy that my Department does not operate a barter account for the provision of goods or services. Therefore, no payments have been directed to a barter account from 2011 to date. This is also the position with regard to the bodies under the aegis of my Department.
238. Deputy Brendan Smith asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform if he will give detailed consideration to the request of a local authority (details supplied) [34186/23]
View answerThe Office of Public Works (OPW) is responsible for the maintenance of Arterial Drainage Schemes and Flood Relief schemes completed under the Arterial Drainage Acts, 1945 and 1995 as amended. The area in question does not form part of an Arterial Drainage Scheme.
The Bunnoe river catchment is part of the Leesborough Drainage District and is under the maintenance responsibility of Monaghan County Council. The OPW has no responsibility for the maintenance of this river, nor the authority to carry out any maintenance works there. Monaghan County Council have previously been approved funding of €320,400 under this scheme for a study and works in the Bunnoe river catchment.
Local flooding, is in the first instance, a matter for each local authority to investigate and address.
The Minor Flood Mitigation Works and Coastal Protection Scheme was introduced by the OPW on an administrative, non-statutory basis in 2009. Applications for funding from local authorities are considered for flood relief and erosion protection measures costing up to €750,000 in each instance. Funding of up to 90% of the cost is available for approved projects. Applications are assessed by the OPW having regard to the specific economic, social and environmental criteria of the scheme, including a cost benefit ratio and having regard to the availability of funding for flood risk management. Full details of this scheme are available on www.floodinfo.ie/ .
