Mr. Maurice Mullen:

The Minister has not decided on any particular form or model at this stage. He has made that clear to us. Certainly, he has not indicated any preference to those of us working on the situation. That is clear.

A question was put about the value for money exercise and whether it is simply about saving money. In the replies to parliamentary questions and in responses from the Department generally, the issue for us is best value for money in the first instance. The Minister has made it clear that he is not setting out to seek to save money in this process. Given that money is tight - by money I mean resources - the exercise is to try to use the money we have to get the best value. If we can do something to help us to achieve additional things we are not doing, that is the type of desired output. The objective is not to start from a point of view of simply trying to save money.

A series of points were made by Senator Ó Domhnaill and Deputy Healy-Rae in respect of the first part and the second part of the draft and I wish to explain that because it is significant in respect of the role senior management has played. Fisher Associates presented their first draft, as they termed it, to us. They did not see that this draft was for publication; it was a first draft. In discussions, they used the terminology of a "challenge draft". They presented views from across the board and from the various stakeholders but one key group from which they wanted a response to that draft was senior management. They used this as a challenge draft. That was their preferred process. We had stood back up to that point. This is a value for money process and an independent company was hired. It was not a case of them sitting there or of us holding their hands. There was no element of that. They were to consult and we indicated all the potential stakeholders. We indicated the longest list we could and we gave it to them and told them that it was theirs. They then consulted under their terms in respect of who they believed would give them the most information. We did not dictate in any fashion or form who should or should not be consulted. We included all stakeholders and any group we could think of which had even a marginal interest. We identified these and left it with them.

Essentially, when the consultants came back, they presented a one-sided view. They put it to us what many of the stakeholders were saying and they wanted management's perspective and a response. Their concern was to ensure that the subsequent iteration of the report would have two sides of the coin and that the process of presenting the second iteration of the report would be robust. In the course of the second iteration, they challenged management's responses.

I am keen to outline some points that arose during that process. Several negative views were expressed about senior management. Different perspectives were offered by various stakeholders who presented different views. Different stakeholders would have different agendas in terms of expressing those views. It was then up to senior management to rebut those observations, which it did.

I followed the process from the outset and I was familiar with the initial material and the final material. It is clear to me from examining the process that many of the arguments presented were part of a wide range of agenda items, many of which dealt with human resources issues and concerns and other matters. These were the genesis of many of the negative comments towards management and they were not altogether relevant to value for money or other operational issues. At the same time as part of the openness of the process I was concerned that the senior management would directly rebut these views with officials since they were responsible for doing this value for money report. Of course it did so in written form and in intensive face-to-face exchanges. A considerable part of the engagement at that stage was to do with the fine detail of what views were suggested, what options had been suggested, where value for money existed and what things were happening which could be changed, and so on.

This fine digging down into the process led to the second draft. The final report was very clearly the position arrived at by Fisher Associates following on from this process. They took away what the different parties had to say and, after careful examination, presented what they regarded as the best recommendations. For example, they stuck with their view that there should be two rather than three stations. Obviously, in the course of the discussions, management put the view that there was huge opposition locally to three stations. The consultants' position was that they were putting forward their recommendations, which could be accepted or not accepted. That is the form in which these value for money reports are given. Consultants give their best independent assessment, but they are not infallible. That is why we are obliged to give careful consideration to their recommendations before deciding whether to accept them.

I wish to make clear that there was not at any stage, as has been suggested here, any form of manipulation, any form of rewriting or any form of reconstructing in any matter associated with this review. The first draft, as I have explained, reflected the views and positions the consultants garnered from their consultation with stakeholders, which did not include senior management. The second draft then took on board what I accept was quite a robust exchange with management arising from the initial draft. I would expect senior management to have that type of exchange in such cases.

At no stage during this process was anyone of the view that there should be a centralisation agenda. That remains the case. This notion that there is something bad about-----