John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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I am talking about being let go for absolute incompetence, which is what we experience here on a regular basis in our meetings every Thursday. I would like to see that dealt with because once that dynamic is removed; there would be a different experience from workers throughout the service. I would like to see exactly what is contained in the contracts particularly for those on lower levels of pay in the Civil Service.

The Minister of State spoke about the 860 people involved in human resource management or with human resource qualifications. I am absolutely amazed to hear that. With the number of problems in the public service relating to human resource management, bullying and other issues, I want to know the qualifications most of those people hold in terms of how they manage. Given the qualifications that exist in the private sector then the issues relating to salaries, increments, add-on payments would not have become so embedded in the system.

I believe one of the Deputies may have touched on this already. Who is managing the change? Are there change managers running right down the service with a particular agenda to drive change and nothing else? On procurement, in my constituency a €5.9 million contract was issued. The contractor went broke and all the subcontractors were caught again. No one local could tender for it because they did not have the turnover and yet they had the ability to do the job. The same is happening with the Government's print management framework. I recently tabled a parliamentary question on the issue. A €10 million turnover is required and all the smaller enterprises need to feed into the bigger companies that are tendering. As a result they do not have the access to the tender process. The Minister of State might indicate how that is broken down.