Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 7 November 2023
363. Deputy Matt Carthy asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform the engagements his Department, or any agency or body under his direction, has had with the Palestinian Authority, any organ of the Palestinian Authority, or any engagement within, or with organisations in, the occupied Palestinian territory, in the years 2021, 2022 and to date in 2023; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [47830/23]
View answerThe information requested by the Deputy is set out below:
• Officials from the Public Service Transformation Division of my Department gave a presentation remotely to public officials in the Palestinian Authority following a request from the OECD in December 2022. The presentation was part of a training event under an EU-funded project that the MENA-OECD Governance Programme is implementing in the Palestinian Authority;
• The Government Chief Information Officer (CIO) was part of an Irish delegation invited by the Jordanian Minister of Digital Economy and Entrepreneurship to speak at the Middle East & North Africa ICT Forum 2022 (MENA ICT Forum 2022) in November 2022. At that event, he was introduced to staff from the Ministry of Entrepreneurship and Empowerment, Palestine. That office contacted the Government CIO in January of this year asking if he would facilitate a discussion on the structure and role of Government in the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Ireland, especially in innovation driven entrepreneurship. This meeting was held in February 2023, with valuable input provided by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and Enterprise Ireland. The Department of Foreign Affairs were in attendance; and
• The Department’s Human Resources Strategy Unit accepted an invitation from the OECD to present to the Palestinian General Personnel Council on the topic of civil service reform on 30 January, 2023. The title of the remote presentation was “Performance Management in the Irish Civil Service”.
