Tom Shehan (Fine Gael)

The Minister has taken on this task and he will get the country off its knees.

The review of progress on the Croke Park agreement will be available next month and this will determine how the reduced figures set out in the programme for Government will be achieved. Even though a substantial number of retirements is indicated, targeted early exit packages may also be needed.

The Government is committed to reforming the way services are delivered and to ensure meaningful change is made. Even after a 5% reduction in the number of public servants in two years, it is a key objective of the programme for Government to reduce the number of public servants more quickly. We need to ensure the next phase is even more ambitious. If that is to be done without a negative impact on frontline services, a more integrated public service with greater mobility within and between sectors must be delivered.

In addition to the reduction in the pay bill from reducing the number of employees, some additional savings will be achieved in the cost of the pay bill through work restructuring, particularly where it reduces the amount of premium payments or number of allowances paid or by reducing substitution costs or the use of agency workers. Discussions are already under way on the following cost saving measures: changes to the working day in the health sector to roll out from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.; revised rosters for gardaí; new ways to handle underperforming civil servants and reduce sick leave absences to improve productivity; and changes at local level to working practices around waste collection and similar services. The significance of the agreement is rooted in the reality that the scale of the desired changes and reforms cannot simply be imposed on a system of more than 300,000 people without their agreement, active engagement and co-operation, or without proactive and ambitious leadership at every level in public service bodies.

Under the agreement, public service unions have fully accepted that the guarantees the Government has given to avoid further pay reductions and compulsory redundancies are dependent on driving forward implementation of the programme of modernisation and improvements in productivity against a backdrop of significantly reducing financial and staff resources. In practice, this means staff must be willing to re-train where necessary, take on more responsibility, work across professional and technical boundaries and be open to travelling within a radius of 45 km to take up a new post. There is much more to achieve.

Senator O'Brien raised the issue of procurement procedures. The Minister of State, Deputy Brian Hayes, is working on the issue and I believe he has been to Britain to investigate best practice there. It is envisaged there will be savings of €1 billion in procurement. If that can be achieved, it would be a massive help to the goal of the Minister, Deputy Howlin. A saving of €1 billion on top of the Croke Park agreement would have the Minister well on his way.

This Government has made it clear it wishes to honour the commitments made in the agreement but this will only be possible if the agreement is implemented in full. Notwithstanding progress to date, it is clear much more must be done, as the Fianna Fáil slogan goes. There is enormous pressure on us to cut expenditure significantly and reduce the size of the public service while at the same time making every effort to maintain services. If services to the public and to businesses are to be maintained with significantly fewer staff and resources, we will need to see accelerated delivery of the full range of reform and efficiencies envisaged under the agreement. These include much greater integration of public service organisations in order that services are designed around the practical needs of the citizen. There should also be better targeting of services to avoid duplication of effort, which is rife in the country at every level up to the Seanad and Dáil.

There should also be accelerated progress in e-government in order that we can deliver faster service to the user, minimise opportunities for fraud and reduce transaction costs for the Exchequer. There should be as much consolidation as possible for financial, payroll, procurement, pensions and human resources services in each sector, as well as the processing of standard information like medical cards.

The centralisation of medical cards is a folly and is not working very well. I ask the Minister to consider that issue again, as it affects people who are hurting and under financial pressure, with families suffering owing to unemployment and the economic downturn. Centralising the applications for medical cards does not work, and I know this from experience with constituents. People can meet Department personnel locally to fill out application forms and meet doctors but if the process is centralised in Dublin, there is no human side to it. There must be a human element to the medical card application process.

The first review of the Croke Park agreement, which was published earlier this month, showed the following. The Croke Park agreement can serve as an effective enabler of economic recovery by helping to create greater stability and certainty and, above all, a climate of industrial peace in necessary conditions under which difficult decisions can be taken and implemented. I am pleased the body has found sustainable pay bill savings of €289 million for the year. The reported non-pay savings detailed in the report amount to some €308 million. Costs of €87.5 million were avoided which would otherwise have been incurred, and the report shows that Exchequer pay bill costs fell from a peak of €17.5 billion in 2009 to €15.7 billion in 2010, or almost €15 billion when considering the effect of the pension related deduction of 14.4%. A further reduction to €14.8 billion is estimated for 2011, representing a 15.5% fall from peak by the end of 2011.

I wish the Minister the very best and any support I can give. The human touch should not be removed from processes. Any support I can give will be forthcoming if that is the case.