John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, and his officials to the meeting and I invite the Minister to make his opening statement.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I am pleased to have the opportunity to address the committee today. Last December, I launched the new framework for development and innovation in the public service, Our Public Service 2020. There has been much progress since the first reform programme was started in 2011, in areas including procurement, shared services and Civil Service renewal, and public service reform continues to play a key role in our development. A recent report by the Institute of Public Administration includes many positive findings. For example, our public administration comes first in the EU28 for being the most professional and least politicised and we comes sixth in the EU28 for the quality of public administration. These results are very encouraging and provide a strong foundation for the next phase of reform set out in Our Public Service 2020.

How does this reform framework differ from what has gone before? There is a greater emphasis on the outcomes of reforms and improving the linkages between reform and expenditure. There is also a stronger emphasis on innovation and on working collaboratively and working better across all of Government. There is also a strengthened model of governance, including a public service leadership board, and emphasis on the importance of digital delivery and data in achieving greater efficiency. These are all important themes and I will return to each of them in turn.

The framework itself is built on three pillars. These are delivering for our public, which includes, for example, the continued development of digital services under the public service ICT strategy to deliver improved public services, innovating for our future to support and encourage new thinking and developing our people and organisations to improve strategic human resource management to ensure the right mix of skills and tools are there to support public servants. In addition to reflecting the lessons from previous reform initiatives, these pillars were developed following an intense period of engagement with the public and public servants themselves as, ultimately, it is they who will be responsible for putting the actions in this framework into practice.

How we will ensure we are measuring our efforts and the impact they are having on the public and the country is a key question that was on our minds when designing the strategy document. We listened to the advice of the OECD on outcomes and we are moving the focus of reform to achieving outcomes, in line with its advice and best practice internationally. The approach we have taken is first to identify six high level outcomes, which we are aiming to achieve in the public service in the long run. These outcomes include increased customer satisfaction, increased public trust, greater use of digital tools, better Government effectiveness, quality of public services and greater employee engagement. We are going to make better use of evidence and evaluation in how we assess the performance of the framework. This will help us to be more effective and efficient and to achieve our overall goal of delivering better outcomes for the public. Our vision for the future of the public service is one that is anchored in outcomes for our people and our country. With this goal in mind, the Department recently established a reform evaluation unit to focus on monitoring and evaluating the outcomes of reform as well as creating greater links between expenditure and reform.

One element of Our Public Service 2020 that I would like to highlight is the need to foster a culture of innovation across the public service. A great example of this is Service RePublic, Ireland’s first public service design centre, which is a collaboration between Cork County Council and Cork Institute of Technology. Our public service has always been innovative in responding to issues that face our citizens. We want to build on that wealth of existing experience but also to draw out new innovations by creating a network of innovators across the public service to connect the right people. Globally, innovation in the public sector is becoming increasingly important as a means of meeting new challenges. It is my view that if we act in an innovative way we can develop different solutions that are both cost effective and citizen-centred. Public service organisations need new ways of thinking, new ways of interacting with citizens, and new ways of gathering and using data to keep up with a rapidly changing status quo. Our Public Service 2020 will be key in achieving this. Looking to the future, we are going to work with stakeholders nationally and internationally to establish a bespoke strategy to better embed innovation in the Irish public service.

It is sometimes easy to forget how the public service plays a role in many aspects of our everyday lives. This is why improving them remains so important. We compare very well internationally in digital services, but moving more services online is a goal of Our Public Service 2020. This will be achieved under the ICT strategy. We also recognise that not all services should be digital and that not everyone can easily access digital services. This leads me to an important point, which is that we need to be better at listening to the public and understanding their needs to be able to deliver real and targeted service improvements. To do this we need to communicate more simply with the public. A good example for others to follow is HSELive, a new health information service launched in September.

To really make change happen we need to work together. We need to be able to respond to challenges. The local community and development committees, for example, provide for collaborative and co-ordinated responses to local issues throughout the country. This strategy aims to deepen this collaboration. This is something that will have an effect on the success of many of our shared strategies, which Our Public Service 2020 sits alongside.

There are huge opportunities to do more with data. As the committee may be aware, we are already leaders in the area of open data. Recently, we achieved first place in the European Commission’s open data maturity assessment for 2017. This is a great result, but we need to encourage all public bodies to open up their data. Open data creates opportunities to exploit data in new and innovative ways, especially as more data becomes available. It also helps us to achieve greater transparency and accountability in Government. We want to make better use of data. This will support better decision-making and improve services and access to services.

I suggest all of this because we all take great pride in the work done by our public servants. Their continuous development is very important for the delivery of the strategy. To oversee all of this, we have developed and will launch a public service leadership board. This will include Secretary General or CEO participation from across the Civil Service and a broad range of public service organisations. I see this as being a really important forum for moving forward on public service reform.

I will now give the committee an update on legislation and where we stand on various matters. The committee will recall that we are trying to progress the Public Sector Standards Bill and the data sharing and governance Bill. Committee Stage of the Public Sector Standards Bill took place in April 2017 and the briefing requested by the committee was provided. The Bill aims to significantly enhance the existing framework for identifying, disclosing and managing conflicts of interest and minimising corruption risks, to achieve a shift towards a more risk-based system of compliance.

The Minister of State, Deputy O’Donovan, is taking the Bill forward and he has had meetings with Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin and local government representative groups on the issue. In light of the public interest in implementing the Mahon tribunal recommendations, and the central role of this Bill, I ask that the Committee Stage of this Bill be completed promptly.

The data sharing and governance Bill is another priority. We need to deliver more digital services and we need to ensure that public bodies share data in a manner that complies with the enhanced data protection regime under the forthcoming general data protection regulation. The purpose of the Bill will be to promote and encourage data sharing between public bodies by providing a statutory framework for data sharing for legitimate and clearly specified purposes that are compliant with data protection law. We also need to improve the protection of individual privacy rights by setting new governance standards for data sharing by public bodies. Work is well advanced on drafting the Bill and I expect it to be published in the first quarter of this year. I would appreciate the committee's support on that Bill.

In addition, real progress has been made in several areas of different legislation such as the open data initiative, freedom of information legislation, the introduction of the lobbying register and the system for the making of protected disclosures. My Department provides support and guidance to assist the implementation of these measures.

The context in which we provide public services is becoming increasingly complex and challenging. It is very important that we support better collaboration, innovation and joined-up approaches across the public service. We have designed Our Public Service 2020 with this to the forefront of our minds. Ireland has come a long way and we have seen a great change in our economy but the world is continuing to change and is doing so fast. Today’s uncertain and unpredictable global environment poses many challenges, but also opportunities, for Ireland. This strategy will help our public service to be better able to prepare for this.

I thank the Chairman for the opportunity to make this presentation and I look forward to any questions and comments from the Chairman and the committee.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister.

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the Minister and his team. I apologise in advance as I must leave at some stage to go to a meeting of the Committee on Budgetary Oversight.

I join with the Minister in paying tribute to the public service in all its guises. I believe there have been huge changes in recent times under very difficult conditions. Senator Conway-Walsh and I have seen at first hand the manner in which the service responded to the tragedy this time last year at Blacksod and the search operations for the Irish Coast Guard helicopter, R116. The cross-collaboration between many different agencies made a very difficult situation a lot easier for the families. That group was acknowledged this weekend at the Mayo awards but there has been huge improvement right across the service in very difficult situations.

I will now tease through a number of the issues within this document. The Minister suffers from his party's tendency to be choosey in what he does and does not remember pre-2011. There was considerable public service reform under way pre-2011 also. The Minister speaks of developing our people and organisations as one of the three pillars. How can we develop people and organisations when currently there are different pay rates for people within the public service who are doing the same job? The Public Service Pay Commission is engaged in a process of addressing pay equality. It is the one issue that is affecting morale and cohesion within the public service. There needs to be a greater sense of urgency about the matter.

On human resource, HR, practices within the public service, action No. 12 in Our Public Service 2020 is to "Embed strategic human resource management in the public service". Is the Minister happy that HR management is best practice within the public service currently and is most relevant to working lives and those who seek to work in the service in 2018 as opposed to another time? Leaving the pay issues aside, have we a service with HR practices that are more responsive to people who may wish to take career breaks or travel breaks and so on? How many vacancies exist within the public service at present and is there an area that gives concern to the Minister with regard to an inability to fill vacancies?

The Minister referred to innovation a lot in his speech, but the reality is that the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is also the lead Department for procurement. Innovation is irrelevant to people if they cannot access broadband. Many of the public services that are offered, especially those such as Revenue's online service, are inaccessible if a person does not have broadband. The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine is pushing everybody towards online applications but a farmer working in agriculture is more than likely to not have broadband. A dog's dinner has been made of the procurement process around broadband. As the lead Department for procurement, does the Minister think it is appropriate that there is only one bidder for such a major project? How will the Minister marry the ambition for innovation within the public service and public service users' inability to access those services online?

On the issues of bullying and harassment within the public service, I have recently submitted a series of parliamentary questions. There are quite a number of claims in some Departments and very few in other Departments. Is the Minister confident in the consistency of application of bullying and harassment policies in all levels of the Civil Service and the public service? Is the Minister confident that the skills are there at line management level to manage this? Given recent publicity around all sorts of allegations, does the Minister have any plans to change policies or refresh policies within the services?

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I thank Deputy Calleary. I acknowledge the significant amount of work that happened on public service reform in the pre-2011 period. I am aware that Deputy Calleary, in his previous ministerial position, played a big role in that. I acknowledge the quality and quantity of work that went on across that period.

I will now turn to the five questions put to me by Deputy Calleary. The first question was about differential pay rates. The Deputy is aware that we have a process under way now principally between the teaching unions, the Department of Education and Skills and my Department on this matter. Due to the agreement achieved between the Department of Education and Skills, my Department, the Teachers Union of Ireland and the Irish National Teachers Organisation, the current starting salary for a teacher is approximately €34,500. I am aware that on pay curves, there are outstanding matters between the teachers' unions and the two Departments I have mentioned, including my own. Under the terms of the public service stability agreement, we are meeting those unions to see if there is a way of moving the matter forward. Because he has as much experience of these matters as do I, the Deputy knows that one cannot move forward an issue around pay rates in one part of the public service and pretend that every other part of the public service will not expect the same change to happen for them. While this issue is principally crystallised around teachers at present, any change we make in new entrants' pay rates or in salary curves will then be immediately required and demanded by every other part of our public service and Civil Service. This is one of the challenges we have to work through in dealing with this matter.

The Deputy's second question was on the current HR practice within the Department. It is my sense that we are making progress with it. In the two years I have been involved in this work I have seen the accelerated professionalisation of the HR role within individual Departments. We also have a chief HR officer located within the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform who works across the board with all of his or her counterparts in every other Department. The progress we are making around mentoring and the mobility of roles has been enabled by the gradual upskilling of HR departments. We have further work to do. From engaging with the Public Appointments Service and the Public Service Pay Commission I am aware that one of the skill sets most in demand across our entire economy currently is for people who work in HR. It is increasingly seen as being a very valuable part of any organisation, be it in the public or private sectors.

The Deputy asked about vacancies in the public service. I will come back to him with any information we have across the totality of the public service. I do not have that information with me today.

My experience from dealing with this issue is that more of our difficulties tend to accumulate at the retention end than they sometimes do at the recruitment end. The retention difficulties we have tend to vary by grade and part of the country. I will ensure we come back to the Deputy if we have any vacancy data to share.

On the Deputy's fourth question on innovation and broadband, the changes that have now happened with the number of participants in the broadband process are a consequence of many occurrences, one which has been that we have had a very demanding and rigorous process. I am very confident that while we have one participant, the final decision on a business case and the management of risk between the State and a participant will protect the interests of our taxpayers, while also recognising the fact that broadband is seen in virtually the same way as any utility. People look at it in the same way they look at electricity or water and expect to have much the same connectivity as cities and other areas with a high level of broadband.

On bullying and harassment, the Deputy is right and we have shared the information in reply to parliamentary questions already. As to whether I believe there are any outliers as to how HR practice has been implemented, I do not. From attending dignity-at-work initiatives and from engaging in the seminars that led to the publication of our public service 2020 plan, I got a real sense that dignity at work and looking after employees is being taken as seriously as one would expect. As is the case with any workplace, the moment one assumes one is doing a great job in this area, one takes a step back. Anybody who is subject to any form of harassment, whether it is bullying or sexual harassment, is already in a vulnerable place in the workforce. As employers, we must always challenge ourselves to see whether we are reaching out to them well enough. As such, while I believe we are doing what the Deputy would want us to do, we are never complacent.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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As all members have offered, I ask the committee to be conscious of the time. We finish at 3.30 p.m. I call Senator Conway-Walsh.

Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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The first thing I want to ask the Minister about is the general data protection regulation, which he mentioned only in passing. This is a hugely important piece of work but it is being pushed through the Oireachtas, which is a mistake. Within the Seanad, we had a one-week turnaround from publication to discussion of the Bill. It deals with really important and substantial stuff. There were some 95 heads of the Bill and there are 162 sections. The Minister has known all along about the May deadline. As such, why is this now being pushed through at such a rate and without people having sufficient time to scrutinise it? I am afraid that public servants will be left to deal with all of this. Even experts around the Bill have said it is not right and that there is a lot more to be done. There is a bizarre set of exemptions and exclusions from the processing of special categories of personal data. They have said the Bill is unworkable. I am afraid that we are giving the public service unworkable legislation and expecting it to work with that. I am also concerned with the level of privatisation within the public service and what that implies for the amount of personal information foreign private companies will have on people. I am thinking about JobPath, Intreo and other services which are tendered to private foreign companies. How will we control that and is the Minister concerned?

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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It is not our intention to rush the Bill through. The Senator is right that it is a lengthy item of legislation. As to why it has taken until now to bring it to the Oireachtas, it went through pre-legislative scrutiny in the committee at some length. There were many hearings on it. When I took over as Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform just under two years ago, the Bill was about to begin pre-legislative scrutiny. As such, it has been working its way through the Oireachtas for quite some time now and it is not at all our intention to rush it in any way. I am interested in why the Senator referred to "foreign" companies. I would have assumed her concern would apply regardless of whether it is a foreign or domestic company.

Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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It would but if we are looking at Brexit and then at something like JobPath, the companies to which the service has been tendered out will be outside the EU once Brexit takes place. That worries me greatly.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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We have to bear in mind that in a post-Brexit environment there will be Irish companies in new international markets working very hard to win business as a result of the negative effects Brexit will have. I am just curious to see why the Senator feels we need to distinguish her concerns purely in terms of foreign companies when one bears in mind that there will be other jurisdictions referring to Irish companies as foreign companies also. As we get through all of the debate that is going to ensue on what a post-Brexit Irish economy will look like, we need to use that kind of language with care.

Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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I am deeply concerned. One of the reasons for that is the secrecy and lack of transparency around the original contracts in the first instance. We have tried and tried to get information and are continually fobbed off with assertions that commercial sensitivity applies. We do not know. There are very vulnerable people in the community whose personal data are given to these companies in circumstances in which we cannot see the detail of the contracts. I am surprised that does not worry the Minister.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I did not say at any point that it is not of concern to me. I am challenging the Senator's language. She should bear in mind that Irish companies will be going abroad looking for new business in the context of what is unfolding in the UK. I would have thought she could appreciate the need to be sensitive to the fact that we have Irish companies tendering for international business at the moment. If we are going to talk about the application of law, it is the application of law that applies equally to all companies.

As for the tendering process, the Senator is right that there are certain forms of information and certain parts of contracts that are not revealed publicly. The reason is that we are involved in multiple tendering processes every day of the week. If we begin to indicate to people involved in those processes what prices we are gaining for the supply of services, we will undermine our ability to deliver good value for the taxpayer. Any information that has been shared or stored, regardless of whether it is by an international company, is subject to Irish law regarding how that information is looked after. Notwithstanding concerns the Senator may have and while it is great to hear she is clearly engaging with what is very important legislation, the Bill we are looking to bring through is about how we can better regulate the sharing of information better between public service bodies.

Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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That is why we should take as much time as is needed to get it right, ensure that all aspects are covered and take Brexit and other external factors into account.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I agree with the Senator. Given that our party and the Independents who form Government are not in a position to control a majority in either the Dáil or Seanad, we must make agreements with the Business Committees of each House regarding the time that is available. From my point of view and that of the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, we are certainly not looking to push anything through. If we were, we would not have the power to do it. This is a Bill which has been subject to extensive pre-legislative scrutiny. I stand to be corrected but I think we have even received a report from this committee about it during the tenure of the current Dáil.

I realise we under time pressure. I have many questions but I will focus on the evaluation of the local community development committee, LCDC. Will it be a 360 degree evaluation regarding people who made initial expressions of interest in the Leader programme or other such programmes and then decided not to go ahead or who dropped out during the 18-step process involved in it? One of the case studies referenced by the Minister related to LCDC structure and its merits in terms of the collaboration involved. I would say there are many weaknesses within that process. When will that evaluation be done? Will there be an opportunity for people to feed into the terms of reference for it?

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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We have not yet set a date as to when the LCDC structure will be reviewed. I imagine such a review would be instigated by the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government but I can talk to the Minister, Deputy Murphy, and find out the Department's timeline for reviewing it. I have considerable experience of the operation of the LCDC structure within parts of my constituency. There are ways in which it has made a big difference in terms of having representatives of many organisations and entities around the same table. However, as with anything, I am sure there are ways in which we can improve it. I will talk to the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government and find out its plans for doing that.

Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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I have one question for the Minister as I have to attend a meeting of the Committee on Budgetary Oversight at 4 p.m. With respect to having better services and better engagement with the public and the movement to online services, there have been some good initiatives in that part of the reform. For instance, the waiting period for the processing of applications for Garda e-vetting has reduced from five months to 80% of them being processed in fewer than five days. The service has been streamlined and there are fewer steps involved. The initiative around SOLAS and the education and training boards about centralising the availability of courses has been positive. There is the potential to improve services in other areas but the implementation process is lacking somewhat. An issue has arisen in our constituency offices concerning the submission of applications for medical card renewals online. Some people are not familiar with using that system. Also, the uploading of additional information can only be done if one has access to a scanner and can scan the documents, which is creating some difficulty for people and it is also creating delays. Many more people are coming into our constituency offices asking us to submit their documentation, which is fine, but there are other people who may not do that and may be falling between the cracks.

We have also experienced some difficulty with the system introduced for the choice-based letting scheme. It is a good scheme and offers much more transparency to people in terms of the bid for a particular house. The difficulty relates to people who do not have access to that type of technology. The local authorities are providing space within their own offices for people to go in and bid but we find many people are not using it because they are not familiar with the system and the supports in place. We have also found that some people do not have the necessary literacy skills to access the programme. There are positives with the changes but there are also potential pitfalls. The Minister spoke about listening to people and I wonder how that process works. How is he getting feedback on all these processes to see which ones are working very well and which ones have the potential to work very well but need some tweaking? Will he comment on that aspect?

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I agree with what the Deputy said. It was good of him to acknowledge the fact that we have managed in recent years to make better use of digital technology in the number of different ways we provide public services. I take his point that it is not working as well as would want in a number of other areas. From my experience of representing a constituency that relies a great deal on the services the Deputy referenced, I am aware we need to make sure we do not get to a point where digital exclusion would overlay all the other forms of exclusion people experience. I do not want to see that happen. As to how we will address that, I made reference to the fact that we are convening a public service leadership forum. The Civil Service group we have comprises representatives of Departments very much involved in running the day to day business of government such as what happens in Cabinet, how we deal with the implementation of the programme for Government and so on. However, the public service leadership group will consist of representatives of Departments and local authorities and senior leadership in the HSE and in An Garda Síochána. I would like to use a body like that one to share best practice on where we are doing well digitally and where we are not doing well and basically to make sure different parts of Government talk to each other about this. That is how we would like to do it. We are doing well in some areas but we can do better in others.

Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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We met the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan and we are eager for the Public Sector Standards Bill to progress as quickly as possible. We are fully supportive of it. Other people have some issues with some sections of it but we are eager to work with the Minister of State to get it done as quickly as possible.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I appreciate that. I know from talking to the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, that in dealing with legislation as important and as sensitive as this Bill, we appreciate the support of any party for it. We are eager to see if we can get to a place where we have the support of the majority of parties and politicians in the House. It is a Bill that is all about our profession, how it is regulated and what we are all meant to do. Given that, it would be great to continue the work that is under way to see if we can get cross-party support on it to move it forward. The Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, has talked to a number of parties and Oireachtas colleagues and he is engaging also with the local authorities on it. I hope we can get it wrapped up soon.

Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail)
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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.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I will put the Senator's points into different groups. With regard to his concerns about the obligations the legislation will impose on local authority members, I know the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, met a number of Senators about the matter and has also met the local authority representative bodies. He is listening to what they have said and we are going to see whether there is any way we can meet the needs that have been identified. With regard to what I want to see happen in local government and in the Dáil and Seanad, we need a composition of people working in our political system that reflects our economy. We need people in local authority chambers who pay rates and we need people in the Dáil and Seanad who have worked in the private sector. If we get the balance wrong, particularly at local authority level, between the requirements people must meet and the time available to them to do it, it will be a further impediment to attracting new kinds of people into political life. I heard of one local authority chamber recently, which I will not name in case I get the exact data wrong, of which it was said that one only member was a ratepayer. That is a real concern for me. We need to have a mixture of people in public life.

I hear what the Senator is saying about the public services card and as it has moved into heightened public awareness, I am certainly aware that we need to respond to those kind of concerns very visibly because the entire purpose of having this card is to get ourselves to a point soon where someone will only have to give their information to the State once and will then be able to access a set of different public services all at the same time. People will really value that when it happens. With regard to how we rolled it out, I guess if we had tried to roll it out in a different way, probably three million of them would not be in circulation now. The card was rolled out in a way that up to last summer, was quite orderly and of which people were supportive. Since then, I certainly acknowledge that we must respond very publicly to the different issues that have been raised because I want to see those cards become an accepted part of how people access public services just like Leap cards, which have been a great innovation.

I touched on broadband when I responded to Deputy Calleary. With regard to teachers, Senator Horkan is right to say that we will not be able to bring in a form of allowance for people on the basis of where they work. We are carrying out work with the Public Service Pay Commission with regard to recruitment and retention in our health service. It will be interesting to see what data that yields in terms of dealing with the point raised by the Senator because if it was to apply to teachers, it would also be pretty likely to apply to people working in our public services in health.

Being able to get the Luas is quite a novel and recent experience for me because it has now arrived in my part of Dublin. I know that during the next while, we will need to provide longer Luas carriages and more carriages. It is the benefit and consequence of more than 2 million people being back in work but on the other hand, we do not want people standing for an entire 30-minute journey given our investment in Luas; we clearly want it to be a better experience for people and I am aware of that.

On the point the Senator made about local authorities, this is something I want to look at under the public service stability agreement now that the agreement has been ratified. Our local authorities should be open for one night per week. People should be able to go into them. I know from talking to local councillors that one of the many reasons someone cannot be a local councillor while keeping a job is because all of the meetings happen during the day. I remember how when I was a member of a local authority, and I had a very supportive employer, it still got to the point where I had to take holidays to go to meetings. I could not have had a more supportive employer. I am of the view that not only for people who rely on public services but also members, we should be able to get to a point where the offices are open for use by members one night per week. In the parts of Dublin with which I am most familiar, the recycling centres are now open on a Saturday morning and the use of them has increased exponentially. People just need one opportunity during the week.

If it cannot be night time, then a weekend slot should be available to be able access a service like that. That happened in several of our local waste depots and has made a significant difference.

Kieran O'Donnell (Fine Gael)
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I welcome the Minister and his colleagues. This is a fine document and it must be acknowledged that 90% of the actions in the second plan between 2014 and 2016 have already been implemented.

When before the Seanad recently, the Taoiseach said that everybody loves reform but few like the change that comes with it. The Minister is setting up a unit to focus on monitoring and evaluating reforms, as well as creating greater links between expenditure and reform. It seems like a good concept. What format will the reform evaluation unit take? How often will it report? Will it be resourced? Will the Minister elaborate on where he sees this going?

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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We will formally report at least once a year. We will publish a paper to state how we are doing versus the indicators in the paper. Within the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, there will be a small team whose job will be to pull this together each year and publish it.

Kieran O'Donnell (Fine Gael)
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Perhaps I should already know this but, in the context of developing people in organisations, is there any arrangement whereby individuals in the public sector can be seconded to the private sector and vice versain order that synergies might be created? I come from the pure private sector, as does the Chairman, and I was self-employed for many years. Very few of our peers have gone into politics. When one is self-employed, it is difficult. We have to look at changing the position in this regard over time. Could a policy be developed whereby a person working in a Department could be seconded to industry for a year to ensure a synergy of ideas between the public and private sectors?

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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We do not have a formal policy on that currently. In the context of the work we are doing, it is a matter at which we could have a look. The one watch-out we need to have is that if one moves beyond a certain level in the public services, one could well acquire knowledge and a skill set that would be of greater value to an employer on the other side of the table. That private value could be greater than the public value we get by allowing that mobility to happen at middle to senior management level.

Kieran O'Donnell (Fine Gael)
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There has to be a balance.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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Yes, there is a balance. That said, what I have seen happen at assistant principal, principal officer and Secretary General level is that a number of individuals leave the public service, go through whatever cooling-off period they need to - if they need to but most do not- then go to work in the private sector and come back again. I have seen that happen most in the areas of international taxation, the Revenue Commissioners and law. We have a growing number of people who would have worked in, say, an accounting firm or legal firm, got to a particular point in their careers or lives and then wanted to work in the public service. We benefit enormously from that.

Kieran O'Donnell (Fine Gael)
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Historically, the private sector benefited enormously from people from the Revenue Commissioners going into private work.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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The flow going in the direction of the public service is a significant help to us. I am eager to look at how we can deepen that. Getting private sector people, who are at a point in their careers where they want to work in a different environment, is helpful to us in the context of certain specialised roles.

Kieran O'Donnell (Fine Gael)
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The issue of duplication of services between bodies and Departments comes up with the public all the time. I do not know if it is a myth or reality but it is probably somewhere between the two. Has duplication within Departments been factored into the framework?

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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No, not in the terms of the provision of public services. Where it has come up is in the duplication of providing information. While it is not the key issue, it is up there near the top in terms of citizens asking why they have to provide all their information, for example, for a SUSI application when the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection has it already. That is a matter in respect of which the public services card will play a role. The step beforehand, when getting the card and the standard authentication framework environment, SAFE, registration, allows one to establish a single digital identity. We will get to a point that for a growing number of public services, a person will only need to provide his or her identity once. When that happens, it will be a breakthrough moment in how we respond back to citizens.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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I have several questions.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Someone's mobile telephone is going off and causing interference.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I do not bring my phone in with me anymore.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Members should take example.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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I accept that there has been considerable ongoing change in the Civil Service and the public service. Some of that change has been forced on the organisations involved. Accordingly, I agree with some of what the Minister said. However, there is a significant amount with which I simply cannot agree. For example, the Minister spoke about public services anchored in outcomes for our people. If one looks at the outcomes for our people, I have to point the Minister to procurement, a debate which has gone on here for as long as I have been a Member of the House.

One of the issues regarding procurement is the ongoing complaint that small and medium-sized enterprises, SMEs, find themselves at a disadvantage because of the procurement process. Even in the construction of houses, when companies go through the tendering process, they will point out there are few construction companies which can point to a turnover of €8 million, €2 million or €10 million over the past several years because they were simply not in business. In turn, this excludes many smaller companies.

This morning I discovered that Kilkenny County Council gave out a large contract to a contractor. However, the contractor is paying a main subcontractor but all of the subcontractors to that main subcontractor are not being paid. We will witness a significant amount of money being lost to the SMEs in that area. I know we will never get to a perfect position but that is far from satisfactory.

In the context of the impact of what we do in the House on the people we represent, one need only look at the tracker mortgage issue. Last week, we had to take the unusual step of writing to the Minister regarding Permanent TSB because of the manner in which it conducted itself at a committee meeting and the way in which it is treating its customers. It was not my decision but one made by all members. Permanent TSB is a State-owned bank in which this type of behaviour is ongoing and we are having little satisfaction with it.

The other issue relative to that is that vulture funds are now purchasing large blocks of commercial and residential properties. The individuals involved have absolutely no protection. The Minister might point to the protection that travels with the loan from the originating bank and so forth. However, it does not happen that way. Again, there was cross-party commentary that it is just shocking to see how the vulture funds are behaving.

What I was hoping in terms of reform - members probably share this - is that in some way the vulture funds and their representatives that are regulated entities would be forced by legislation to come before committees of this House, especially this committee, because of the fact that they are ruining the lives of people and giving them no chance whatsoever, having themselves got the opportunity to rebuild their balance sheets because the taxpayer forked out €64 billion or some such amount in supports. My question on this part is whether the Minister will bring sufficient pressure to bear on the banks in which we have ownership to ensure they do not sell to vulture funds and that where loans are owned by vulture funds at least the regulated entities would be forced to come before the committee of this House? We have a report in draft form which we are sending to the Business Committee because we want all of this debated in the House and we are making arrangements for that to happen. It is a cross-party initiative to bring some sort of fair play into a market where people are blackguarded left, right and centre and they are looking to us for the answers.

Recently we passed legislation on water charges. I understand the agreement was that the Comptroller and Auditor General would hereafter audit Irish Water. Will we see such legislation come before us shortly?

A report was available on community banking. The committee is setting out to bring about a meeting of stakeholders here, including the Sparkassen bank from Germany. We will visit that organisation in due course. We want to know when the report will be available and what the Government's view is on the report.

The Minister mentioned the Top Level Appointments Commission, TLAC, and the other group in terms of overseeing the ongoing improvements. Is there any way he can tilt the balance in favour of independent oversight so that one gets people who are independent of Departments to look at matters? Too often in this House I have seen organisations examine themselves. They look internally so one does not get a clear, independent view. The time has come within the Civil Service and the public service to have such oversight.

In terms of the provision of services directly to the people we represent, we cannot stand over what is happening in the Garda and the HSE. Every time we ask about financial matters, in particular in those organisations, we are told that there are so many reporting systems rather than just one that they find it difficult to know what is happening.

We all saw on television the report that monitored maternity units in hospitals over five or ten years ago, yet it has taken us a significant amount of time to come to the point of publicly acknowledging it but not having a plan to deal with it. That reflects badly on the management of our systems. We have management within the HSE, the Prison Service and the Courts Service causing enormous pain for the people we represent. Those areas should be prioritised.

Finally, I wish to touch on the question of bullying within the Civil Service and the public service and protected disclosures. It is appalling how whistleblowers are treated within their organisations. I am not talking specifically about Maurice McCabe. I know many others. I know people within the education sector that are out on sick leave because they could not take any more, having made a protected disclosure. They are not offered the type of protection to which they are entitled under the legislation. When a protected disclosure is examined it is examined internally, so it could be the case that the very same people that have inflicted the bullying and harassment on an individual forced to make a protected disclosure examines it. As a result, the person is out of work and feels further isolated and vulnerable. The nurses and gardaí that are on the front line are amazing people. They are the Band-Aid that keep the organisations together and there seems to be little or no reform that the relevant Ministers can press through the system of governance down to that level which would give them greater protection in their workplace and a greater ease in carrying out the amazing work that they do.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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On procurement, first, I believe anybody who wins a contract through the public procurement process should do so according to terms and conditions that enable people who work for them, either directly or indirectly, to be paid, and to be paid in accordance with the law in terms of the minimum wage and protecting people in the workplace. For any contract that is awarded on that basis I would expect that the people who do the work would get paid for it.

Across the period since we have tracked the savings that we have made in procurement, which is for the four years up to the end of 2016, we have made savings of approximately €300 million. You are right to say, Chairman, that it has resulted in individual companies having to be part of consortia to win tenders. But, for example, if in relation to construction we are trying to lower the price of housing, then it does mean that we will be asking companies to come together to pool their expertise and work together in order to try to achieve pricing that ultimately might make those homes more affordable.

On banking, as you know, Chairman, I do not have the ability to intervene, legally, into whether any bank decides to sell a loan book or not. I will have to check the legal status of requiring private companies to come before the Oireachtas. I hope that anybody who is invited to come before an Oireachtas committee would do so but I am not sure what the legal foundations are to allow that to be an invitation one cannot turn down, apart from the relationship that exists between the Committee of Public Accounts and public bodies.

In relation to the Comptroller and Auditor General, I am not aware if legal change is required to allow that office to oversee the work of Irish Water. I will ask the question and get back to you on it, Chairman.

The Minister for Rural and Community Development, Deputy Ring, and I are working on the report on community banking at the moment. The two of us are considering a draft report currently and I expect that will be published in the coming weeks or months.

Are you saying, Chairman, that TLAC should appoint more people from outside the Civil Service?

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Yes.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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Okay.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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I do not see why anyone should be a permanent member of TLAC.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I do not intend that anyone would be a permanent member of TLAC. As with any appointment I make, it is for a specific period of time. If we have made any appointment that creates the impression that somebody has been a permanent member of TLAC I will follow up on that because that is not my intention. I believe the membership should change. I will see if we can get the information for you, Chairman, regarding the number of external appointments that have been made by TLAC.

We are undertaking a review at the moment of protected disclosure policy.

I do not want a situation to arise whereby a person who is reviewing the protected disclosure information or the protected disclosure itself is somebody who is subject to that disclosure. This should not happen. If it is happening - and I take the Deputy's words in good faith - I would be happy to receive the details of it. That should not be happening.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Answers to parliamentary questions, particularly questions directed to the HSE and other such organisations, should be made readily available to Members. The Taoiseach made a comment on this in recent times and mentioned specific issues relating to Department of Justice and Equality. I note that Deputy Kelly is here. I am not asking the question on foot of that. The information, particularly as it relates to health matters, should be provided more willingly by the Department rather than being held back. Deputies ask questions on matters of particular urgency. All Departments should be helpful in terms of answering parliamentary questions. I have a respect for the Members of the House who go to the bother of carrying out their work in that way.

We are due to hear from Benefacts later. Can the Minister comment on it?

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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It is a great project. It is funded mainly by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. I launch its annual report each year.

Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour)
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What is the breakdown of the funding?

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I cannot say. I will find out for the Deputy. I do not have that information now, but I imagine that my Department is a significant funder of it. Benefacts pulls together into a single dataset all of the information available about how public bodies and charities are funded. I have looked at its website. If one wants to find out form where an organisation receives State funding, it will provide the total amount it receives and from what State bodies that funding comes. We have funded Benefacts in recent years and I believe it is a good project.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Are there any other questions before we conclude this part of the meeting?

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I have just been told that Benefacts was previously funded by Atlantic Philanthropies, but my Department is now the main funder.

Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour)
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Is that for 2018 or 2017?

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I imagine it is for 2017.