Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is germane in that we could talk until the cows come home about cultural change, openness and the need to change. It is accepted that there is a need for cultural change in the public service. Deputy Sean Fleming correctly pointed to the reflex reaction in the case of hospitals on the deaths of infants. There were very tragic cases in which the impulse was to protect the institutions concerned. This is undoubtedly an issue. If the instinct of the Government is, above all else, to protect the State as it sees it, it is not exactly leading by example.

Under the heading of "Openness and Accountability", the Minister referred in his opening comments to the continuation of the comprehensive programme of statute law revision. For how long will that proceed? Is it an open-ended process? It is the process for which the Minister has used JobBridge personnel. I have discussed this issue with him before and he knows my view on JobBridge. We will not have this battle again this afternoon.

I have a couple of specific questions on what the Minister presented. To what extent does the practice of outsourcing feature in the alternative models of service delivery? One of the Minister's actions in the next three years will be to up-skill public service managers in the execution of end-to-end outsourcing systems. I am curious to know what that means. As the Minster knows, the practice of outsourcing is one which gives rise to considerable concern for those who work in the public sector, bearing in mind that their numbers have been depleted. I would appreciate the Minister’s comments on the issue.

I was struck by the leadership section in respect of the issue of performance. The Minister said something about the review of the Civil Service. This is welcome and good, but the Minister, in setting out the target, referred to a period from the third quarter of 2014 to the second quarter of 2015. He used the wording, “examine the contractual framework for senior civil servants to underpin an effective approach to supporting high performance.” That is a bit of a mouthful. What exactly does it mean?

I was struck by some of the targets set for the HSE. The Minister might talk to us about the business case for a single integrated finance system, the work on which is ongoing and which he thinks he might complete by the end of 2016. The HSE feasibility study and the business case for a national recruitment system were referred to. If approved, the system will proceed to implementation. The Minister says the work on it is ongoing and will be completed by quarter two of 2014.

That raises the obvious question as to whether or not the Minister will lift the recruitment embargo. It is all very well to have a recruitment procedure but if there is no recruitment one wonders about its merits.