Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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The Irish businesses on the framework which have won the contract and which will deliver this service at knock-down rates to the local government sector throughout the country are with it. They have shown that they can do this. Stationery is another example. A deal was won by an Irish business which is now securing costs in the local government sector that it thought unimaginable. If we are going to move to this, we need political support. We are not in the business of supplementing local employers in terms of what we can do. We are in the business of driving the best deal we can get. We are going to introduce in the public sector the same requirement that the private sector has and we make no apologies for that.

Another question was asked about shared services. There are 860 staff at the moment but we will go to 630. This is real reform, a reduction from 862 to 630. There are 320 on the transactional side and 300 on the training side. Can I be blunt? The Chairman put his finger on it.