Jack Chambers

I thank the Deputy. I appreciate he raised this matter with me during the past week or so. I followed up on it directly with officials this morning to try to get a response and I will come back to him with a comprehensive response.

I absolutely agree that we need to expand catering across all the rail services. The Deputy made a fair point that we should have later trains covering different regions, as happens in other areas. I will ask that the Minister for Transport engage with the National Transport Authority and Irish Rail. With the increased capital investment, new trains and improved train lines, we need to ensure the …

I appreciate the issue here and the significant issue of people being excluded on the margins, or indeed being taken out of social housing lists, by virtue of income growth. I understand from the Minister, Deputy Browne, that a revised household means policy issued to all local authorities recently around income disregards, once-off income and other changes, but I understand the wider issue. We ar…

I appreciate the concerns around the potential. I do not know the specifics of the organisation of gardaí in respect of the different regions. I know this is something Deputy McAuliffe has also engaged on with the Minister for justice around the concerns in Ballymun and elsewhere. The Deputy will be aware that the deployment of gardaí is a specific matter for the Garda Commissioner, but we will re…

I thank the Deputy. The Government agreed a medium-term fiscal structural plan in December last year. This set out fixed expenditure ceilings for the period to 2030. It provides for significant uplifts in expenditure over the coming years, with gross voted spending to reach €147.3 billion in 2030. As set out, the ceiling for 2027 will increase to €125.5 billion. This is an uplift of €7 billion on …

The Deputy is completely misrepresenting what we are doing. I have said efficiencies and reforms will be provided to my Department during the summer. They will inform the Estimates discussions with Departments in the context of a 2027 allocation of over €125 billion. The €7 billion uplift forms the basis of negotiation with Departments, how they identify efficiencies and reforms and how we moderat…

It is efficiencies and reforms in the context of the allocation for 2027.

We should have greater discussion in here around efficiencies and reforms across all expenditure lines. No Department is immune from driving greater efficiencies and improving productivity, outputs and impacts in the context of a significant increase in public expenditure in recent years. Notwithstanding the levy we have introduced to moderate overall expenditure, there should be greater focus on …

The Government’s approach to public service pay over many years has been to engage through an established framework of collective bargaining with public service unions and associations. This is a tried and tested approach that has supported sustainable improvements in pay for public servants and orderly management of the public finances, while also facilitating public service reform and changes to…

I fully share the Deputy's reflection on public servants and the huge role they play in our hospitals, schools and members of An Garda Síochána keeping people safe. That is why we want to a new agreement. As with previous agreements, we want to make sure that it is fair, equitable and ensures a fair deal for workers and rewards them for the work that they do every day on behalf of all of us. There…

As with previous agreements, our intention is to ensure that we arrive at one that is affordable and planned and delivers fair pay for public servants. I am absolutely clear about that. I want to see discussions recommence. Exploratory discussions have taken place on two occasions. My officials remain open to engaging. On the issue of the wider workforce and the economy, we want to ensure that we…

My Department has taken a proactive and co-ordinated approach to supporting the responsible and effective adoption of AI across the public service. A key component of this was the publication of the Guidelines for the Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence in the Public Service in May 2025, which provide a practical framework to assist public service bodies in designing, developing and deployi…

Absolutely. The first step, and Deputy Malcolm Byrne who has been a strong advocate of it is present, is to provide a basis to encourage AI's use. From a system where the digitalisation of public services has been challenging over the past number of decades to one that positively embraces AI, it is people who will provide that interface to both design AI's use in the public service but also to use…

I thank both Deputies. In terms of the wider digital public services plan we, have the life events approach which is about embedding a lot of people's interface with public services through life events, and how they can be digitally enabled through a life events portal, which will provide a much better interface to people's interaction with the State. Also to Deputy Boland's point, we will ensure …

The public service digital transformation fund, PSDTF, was established to support the delivery of Government priorities under the Digital Public Services Plan 2030. The digital public services plan is the Government's roadmap for delivering seamless, inclusive and user-centred public services through digital transformation. This Plan is a flagship initiative under the Better Public Services strate…

I do not have a specific update here with me on digital or electronic health records. We have taken the leap as a Government, with the Minister, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, to put significant capital funding aside to digitalise our health system, which is the correct strategic move in the context of Ireland being behind many other countries in the efficient use of health data for personal reasons and…

Certainly there is a massive opportunity in terms of data as we digitalise our health system. We need to do it in a way that builds trust, is transparent and obviously protects individuals as well. I would be open to that wider engagement with the Minister for Health and others, as we are tendering for this and delivering it, on how do we build the case so that people can use really important data…

I propose to take Questions Nos. 8 and 21 together. As part of the budgetary process each year, my Department sets overall expenditure ceilings for each ministerial Vote group. These are laid out at Vote level in the budget day expenditure report published in October, with further detail provided in the Revised Estimates for public services published in December. Following the allocation of each …

I am not privy to the interaction the Deputy had with the Minister for housing on this, but the Local Government Fund distributes the respective funding across different local authorities, and Galway County Council and Galway City Council would receive allocations through that. I was clear in my initial response to Deputy O'Hara. We have significant investment across many projects in the west of …

As Minister, I am responsible for the setting the overall capital allocations across Departments and for monitoring monthly expenditure at departmental level. In 2021, the NDP review originally committed €165 billion for the period to 2030. The revised development plan set out €275.4 billion in capital investment to 2035, the largest and most significant capital investment in the history of the St…

The published tracker sets out the region-by-region specificity in terms of infrastructure investment. I understand and agree that we need to give that regional uplift to the north-west, where there is a documented infrastructure deficit. That is why we have prioritised transport in our national development plan and, in fairness, the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, has rebalanced some of the transport f…

The Deputy and I were in Ballymote last summer, and I am very familiar with the wider territory of Sligo and the north-west, including that great county, Mayo, next door to the Deputy, where I was last weekend.

We recognise the need, whether in north-west Donegal, where I was a few weeks ago, or all the way down to Kerry. There is a need along the Atlantic corridor to give that uplift to investment in roads and to enhance Local Link. I will ask the National Transport Authority to engage with the Deputy on that. There are also huge opportunities in tourism. Where we build out the tourism infrastructure, p…

In December 2025, the Government published the medium-term fiscal and structural plan, which set out fixed expenditure ceilings for the period 2026 to 2030. This provides for significant uplifts in expenditure over the coming years, with gross voted spending to reach €147.3 billion in 2030. My Department has responsibility for developing expenditure policy in line with agreed Government objectives…

That is why we should have reforms in the Department of Education and Youth around how that operates more efficiently. It is the role of the Minister and Accounting Officer in that Department, to use that example in terms of efficiency in respect of school transport, to ensure that we do not have duplication or two half-empty buses when there could be one. That is something that should be examined…