Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am open to discussing any idea and to hearing views. We are working through a crisis and I want to see what good ideas can be suggested. If people are drawing down a permanent salary on the public payroll, even they do not have a job to do, it is better that they move on. If we need to find the resources that allow them to move on, that would be a good thing. Let us see where we can find the money, if such people exist and are identified by State agencies.

On the Deputy's broader question of the sale of State assets, we have deployed the first €200 million from the National Lottery licence to job creation. We have allocated additional funds for county roads, retrofitting local authority houses and constructing new schools. These are the areas in which I want to continue investing but I am open to suggestions on ways to improve not only job creation capacity throughout the country but also the efficiency of the public service and public servants to give us a pool of money that we can deploy in the medium term to improve the services this country needs.