The information requested by the Deputy is as follows:
A total of 60 staff in my Department have a degree and/or a post-graduate qualification in Economics, accounting for 14 % of the total staffing cohort. While many staff are economists by profession and support in particular the work of the Irish Government Economic and Evaluation Service (IGESS) established in 2012, many other staff within the Department have a wide variety of professional backgrounds with a strong quantitative analysis component such as statistics, data analysis, social science, business and financial management, research methodology, evaluation and policy analysis. All of these skills, and others, drive and support competence, capability and capacity in the wide and complex work of my Department.