That has not been approved.

My question relates to a matter which has been raised on two separate occasions in the House this morning, that is, the impact of potential tariffs being considered by the US on Ireland and the EU's trade with the US and any assessments the Department may have undertaken at this stage on that impact. The Minister addressed the matter earlier but I have a couple of related questions in the follow-up discussion.

One of the implications of all of this that is probably less well understood is the fact that Ireland is the ninth-largest foreign direct investor in the US economy and that Irish firms are responsible for a substantial number of good jobs in the US. Of course, President Trump is nothing if not unpredictable. We were expecting some form of white smoke from the White House this week as to what any potential tariffs may look like. Obviously, Ireland is especially exposed. On that basis, obviously, much of the respons…

There is more than a grain of truth in what some colleagues said earlier but I would not put it in the way they have. There is an imbalance in the Irish economic and enterprise model and we are all aware of that, notwithstanding that we have to recognise the incredible work being done by Enterprise Ireland. I remind Deputy Tóibín to look at the Enterprise Ireland job statistics from last year. They are quite extraordinary and they compare very favourably with IDA Ireland's but there is a larger job of work to be do…

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Moran, back to the Dáil and congratulate him on his appointment. I look forward to working with the Minister of State in order to hold him to account but also to ensure progress in his Department in the context of what is an important role. There is reference in the programme for Government to ensuring that "the Office of Public Works (OPW) and its structures deliver best value for money outcomes on all projects". Will the Minister of State indicate precisely what he means by…

I thank the Minister of State. We know, and I will not recount, the different overspends around OPW projects that have been interrogated by the media, and indeed in this House, during the last period. The OPW is a very proud organisation with a long track record of achievement throughout the entirety of the history of the State. I do not want to see the OPW, its staff and the work it does to become a watchword for waste. There has been a fair degree of opportunism about various projects around these Houses, quite f…

I look forward to seeing that guidance. I assume it will be published and made available to Members of the House because it is important in respect of accountability and transparency in State organisations, and governance, more generally. This morning, and during the past 24 hours, there was a separate matter to do with the public spending code - the outrageous overspend on an IT project in the Arts Council. It is symptomatic of a wider problem across the system. I do not want to feed into any kind of anti-public s…

It has a brand issue, there is an issue with the OPW brand. The Minister of State said in an article in the Mail on Sunday he wants to rebuild the brand. What does he mean by that?

It is complicated.

Will the Minister put on the record the position relating to the programme for Government commitment on the process of workforce planning? It is referred to in the document adopted by the House. Will he elaborate on precisely what that means, what the process involves and when he expects to complete that initiative?

I am glad the Minister made the point that the public sector ought to be the employer of choice. It needs to be the exemplar and best practice needs to be shown. A degree of workforce planning in the ranks of junior Ministers has taken place this week. The Minister claimed that because of an expanded population we require additional Ministers of State. We had that debate yesterday. He is right that public sector employment levels will grow to a record high this year and that is to be welcomed. There is a degree of …

IBEC has even made an assessment in recent years and has caught up with the position of the Labour Party and others that our State is not only too small to service current economic and social needs, but future economic and social needs and ambitions. I will make two points. The first is that when we talk about agility, the public sector and the private sector need to be agile. There is now competition for talent. It was disappointing to see individual Departments going on solo runs last week on unilateral proposed …

This question is on the commitment made in the programme for Government to create a dedicated infrastructure division in the Department. Will the Minister put on the record the range of skill sets that will be available, the number of staff to be employed and the overall complexion of that particular division, which will be critical to the development of crucial infrastructure in our country?

I thank the Minister very much. The creation of this division seems to be a halfway house between Fine Gael's manifesto commitment to a Department of infrastructure and Fianna Fáil's own ambitions in this area, as reflected in its general election manifesto. The division will be headed by a deputy Secretary General. That is also the case in some other Departments. I believe the Department of Justice has a deputy Secretary General. The way the Minister has described this suggests that expertise will be pulled into t…

I will put the Minister behind the 8-ball, if I may. I have no doubt from speaking to his Government colleagues that Government has one, two or maybe even three principal objectives in respect of the expeditious delivery of critical infrastructure in the early part of the term of this Government. What are the most important infrastructure development projects that could be supported by this new division? The Minister must have something in mind. I have no doubt that he does. I have a slight concern. It was a concer…

I would like the Minister to put on the record of the House the programme for Government commitment on the context around the planned review of the Civil Service blended working policy framework. As I mentioned in another context earlier, in recent weeks the Department of Social Protection, for example, went on what I might describe as a solo run and requested that staff return to the office a minimum of two days per week from this month. The situation has changed since, but I ask the Minister to elaborate on the c…

It seems to me that the Department of Social Protection jumped the gun with its solo run on this. It jumped the gun on the programme for Government commitment. Nobody has any difficulty with a review. The existing policy, though, has been in place only since 2022, and I would not advise the Civil Service and public service or the Minister to take any example from the code of practice of the Workplace Relations Commission that applies, for example, to the private sector. That is essentially a charter for refusal for…

If I am reading correctly what the Minister is saying, he is comfortable with what the Department of Social Protection did in recent weeks, essentially instructing staff to come back to the office without agreement two days a week. By the way, that may seem reasonable to some, and I am not saying it is unreasonable. What is unreasonable is the lack of consultation and the unilateral nature of that decision, which appeared to blindside staff and their representative organisations, Fórsa in this case. Nobody has any …

I am trying to identify the question.

I thank the Minister for the prompt. I have been here all morning as I had finance questions earlier as well.