This presentation was made by Carol Baxter and John Burke, at the 3rd Experts Meeting on Gender Budgeting held at the OECD Conference Centre, Paris, on 19-20 September 2019.

1. OECD Scan: Equality Budgeting
in Ireland
Observations
Government of Ireland
19th September 2019, Paris

2. 2 An Roinn Caiteachais Phoiblí agus Athchóirithe | Department of Public Expenditure and Reform
1. Equality Budgeting is a challenge – it
is multidimensional.
 Gender Budgeting targets one
dimension of equality.

3. 3 An Roinn Caiteachais Phoiblí agus Athchóirithe | Department of Public Expenditure and Reform
2. Every individual dimension of equality
is different.
 Disaggregated data will be key to the success
of Equality Budgeting.

4. 4 An Roinn Caiteachais Phoiblí agus Athchóirithe | Department of Public Expenditure and Reform
3. Departments need to be on board.
This is extra work that I could do without: No
This is a way to show everyone the great
work we are doing to tackle inequality: Yes

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5 An Roinn Caiteachais Phoiblí agus Athchóirithe | Department of Public Expenditure and Reform
Policy Scan
• The policy scan has identified the importance of a systematic approach
to equality budgeting.
• The crucial challenge for us will be to embed equality budgeting within
existing policy development mechanisms.
• We see two key steps as necessary within that systematic approach.
We need firstly to raise awareness with Government Departments and
agencies of equality budgeting. Secondly, we need to provide training
for Government Departments and agencies so that they understand
and identify the equality dimensions of their budgets. That will involve
highlighting the equality impacts of their spending.

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6 An Roinn Caiteachais Phoiblí agus Athchóirithe | Department of Public Expenditure and Reform
Equality Proofing
• As the policy scan indicates, the equality budgeting process
will be strengthened if supported by an effective equality
proofing process which identifies the impact of spending on
equality outcomes.
• We are looking firstly to see how we can integrate equality
proofing into our existing equality strategy review mechanisms.

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7 An Roinn Caiteachais Phoiblí agus Athchóirithe | Department of Public Expenditure and Reform
Equality Proofing (2)
• We plan to use the mid-term review processes on three equality
strategies to see how we can advance this work.
• We are beginning the mid-term review of the National Strategy for
Women and Girls 2017-2020. We are midway through the mid-term
review of the National Disability Inclusion Strategy 2017-2021 and we
have begin the mid-term review process on the National Traveller and
Roma Inclusion Strategy 2017-2021.
• These mid-term review processes enable us to review indicators and
evaluation mechanisms which are key to effective proofing.

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8 An Roinn Caiteachais Phoiblí agus Athchóirithe | Department of Public Expenditure and Reform
Equality Proofing (3)
• We will shortly undertake an evaluation of the National Traveller and
Roma Inclusion Strategy. This will give us an opportunity to look at
equality proofing as part of the overall objective of seeing how we can
adapt the implementation process on the Strategy to ensure that it
achieves its planned outcomes.
• We plan to use the existing proofing models available, particularly
those recommended by the European Institute for Gender Equality.
• We would welcome, however, any information that experts may have
on undertaking equality proofing explicitly for the purpose of equality
budgeting.

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9 An Roinn Caiteachais Phoiblí agus Athchóirithe | Department of Public Expenditure and Reform
Equality Data
• Robust, disaggregated equality data is key to the equality proofing
process.
• We commissioned the Economic and Social Research Institute to
undertake an analysis of existing data in relation to migrants. That
report has found useful administrative data that can be used to assess
outcomes for migrants.
• We plan to work with other Government Departments and the Central
Statistics Office to identify the administrative data available across the
equality grounds, particularly gender and disability, that we can use for
equality proofing.

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10 An Roinn Caiteachais Phoiblí agus Athchóirithe | Department of Public Expenditure and Reform
Equality Data (2)
• A new data strategy has just been developed for the Irish
public service.
• We will work within that data strategy to develop a process for
sourcing data that can be used to support equality proofing
and equality budgeting.
• The first step will be to identify what is available, to raise
awareness of the need to gather disaggregated equality data
and then to develop a process for sharing anonymised data
across Government Departments and agencies.