Research and Development
Dail Éireann — 2021-10-13
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Simon Harris (FG), Wicklow

We have an excellent Civil Service, but it must be complemented by expert advice or, as the Deputy suggested, by providing opportunities for people within the Civil Service to gain that expertise. Ministers can be generalists, but we are reliant on the expert advice that we receive. The more we can embed that within public policymaking the better it will be.
I will not have time to read this full list, but I will send it to the Deputy, of some good examples of where SFI's public research fellows are carrying out work on behalf of a range of Departments. Examples include my Department undertaking a project on the development of a standardised classification scheme for public investment in research with Trinity College Dublin. The Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, the Houses of the Oireachtas, which has many projects, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, FSAI, are also undertaking such projects. Therefore, we are making our agencies available to Departments. My message to everybody involved in public policy is that that is a service we are willing to provide and happy to resource further. I would love to have a conversation in more detail, perhaps in a committee, regarding how we might embed that expert advice in public policymaking because there is no doubt that it will lead to better public policies.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2021-10-13/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:49:41+00:00
Sitting date: 2021-10-13