Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his opening remarks. On the Public Sector Standards Bill, I understand Deputy Dara Calleary has been working very well with the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, on it. I want to put on record some of the discussions we have had here with both the Association of Irish Local Government, AILG, and Local Authority Members Association, LAMA, who felt the initial reporting requirements under the legislation were very onerous for people who are basically on part-time salaries. The Minister will know about this as he deals with councillors in his area, across the country and in his party all the time. It is very onerous for people who are effectively one-person operations dealing with all their own emails to be regarded as the equivalent of Cabinet Ministers in terms of the reporting requirements and what they can do and cannot do. Many people serving on local authorities might happen to be an auctioneer, chartered engineer, surveyor or planner and that could very much heavily impinge. They should be transparent and upfront and should not be in any way abusing anything they are doing, but sometimes there may be unintended consequences. One of the requirements is that one must disclose all one's cash balances. If one has shares in a business that is related to what one is doing or if one owns land in one's local authority area, that is relevant, but I am not sure a person's cash balance in a bank, whether it be €50, €10,000 or €20,000, is relevant to their decision making. Revenue has access to do that anyway, therefore, I am not sure why everyone has to report all their cash balances to the Standards in Public Office Commission, SIPO. That requirement may have been removed but I would have a concern about it.

With regard to data sharing, the public services card is a very good card. Many people I know use it and use it very happily. It has a huge amount of merit but perhaps the way it was rolled out and its implementation led people to be a bit more suspicious about data sharing than they otherwise might have been. We need to be careful when we are trying to bring people with us and I mean that right across the political spectrum. Most of us embrace technology as much as we can and as far as we are able to. I think the Minister might have been Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport when the Leap card was introduced. Things like the Leap card have been great. Revenue Online is excellent while Passport Online is very good but, equally, there are other elements of technology that frighten people in terms of how they are being monitored and tracked and we need to allay their fears as best we can. It is not about bullying people. There may have been a better way of approaching it than suggesting that a person cannot have something if they do not do something.

I am supportive of the digital agenda and technology but, as Deputy Calleary and the Minister said, we need to look at broadband as if it was running water or electricity. I remember being the chair of the Southern and Eastern Regional Assembly, which was under the Minister's remit. Certainly the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform was in charge of regional assemblies at one stage. There were 53 councillors in the room from Fingal to Clare and further south. Half of the room said nothing because they had broadband while the other half had no broadband. They were driving up to hotels or coffee shops where they could get free Wi-Fi to pay a bill or download their emails. If we are asking people to embrace technology, we must give them the tools to actually harness that technology.

In respect of public sector reform, the public sector is obviously much bigger than the Civil Service and we acknowledge that. I speak as somebody who has been chairman of a school board for nine years and a member of school boards for 15 years in south Dublin, an area with which the Minister would not be very familiar. There is a crisis in staff recruitment but there is also a crisis in staff retention, particularly in Dublin. I am sure the Minister is aware of it in his own constituency. If somebody who gets a job in Dublin all of a sudden realises that the same job is available down home in Limerick, Offaly, Longford or somewhere else where property prices are much more affordable, they will be gone. It is even more difficult to retain staff such as qualified teachers in Dublin than anywhere else in the country because of property prices, regardless of whether they involve rent or trying to get a mortgage. I am not suggesting a London weighting concept but we do need to look at the fact that a primary school teacher in a rural area and a primary school teacher in south Dublin are getting the same money but their disposable income at the end of the week or month is hugely different. That needs to be acknowledged.

Equally, while Luas is not a public service in one way, it is effectively a public piece of infrastructure being run by a company under contract to the State. The Minister knows that the Luas is not working the way it used to work. It is massively under pressure. I know people who were trying to get on in Dundrum who are now going out as far as Sandyford to cross the tracks and come back in. I know of one person who sat and watched six trams go past and eventually got on the seventh one where it was like a train in Japan with people were stuffing passengers in. It is important that we acknowledge good public sector reform but, equally, we need to make sure we have the capacity to deal with things. People are willing to embrace public transport. It is there and it is excellent but at peak times and even at off-peak times at the moment, it is not delivering the way it used to deliver and we need to acknowledge that in this module.

We also need to look at service delivery. Restaurants, coffee shops and cinemas will open when people want to be there. Perhaps local authorities should stay open one evening a week to allow people who are at work to access services. Recycling centres are open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. every day but they are not open past 4 p.m. so people at work might get to them at the weekend if they are lucky. We need to embrace those kind of concepts as well in terms of offering a quality of service to people.

I know our planning system is not the Minister's responsibility but, ultimately, as Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, he is looking at the entire public service. There are excellent planners and excellent people who are trying to work with very outdated and unwieldy legislation. If we are trying to deliver houses and pieces of infrastructure, we need to look at our planning system and make it easier for people to apply or object but we need to expedite the decision-making process far more quickly regardless of the outcome.