Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

The answer to the last question is yes. Within the figures the MAC of my Department has the flexibility to try to rearrange things, seeing as the presidency came within the period to which the Deputy referred. In terms of achieving the bottom line figures, as has to be done in the report to the Department of Finance by every Department, this has been achieved. At the same time there are always new issues and work practices.

The other question across the Civil Service is that productivity has been quite extraordinary in many areas. I have many examples and Deputy Rabbitte is correct in saying that this information does not see the light of the public domain. In fairness to the public service I have seen issues in the Department Social and Family Affairs, such as turning around claims, and in other Departments and there has been a large gain. The beneficiary has been the public and this is what it is all about.

As the Deputy will recall from both our previous lives, I never liked the analogue system. I thought the system was like a sausage machine, rolling out the system and on it went. There were no benefits for anyone and what one person received the next person received and on it went. The only confusion was what round and what claim one was on. I am not saying benchmarking is perfect but it has the potential to examine grades and responsibilities where a good job is being done and where people are genuinely trying to make productivity changes.

As we all know there are always better ways of doing things and the people who know that are the people doing the tasks. If they consider it and if there is an incentive they will see a way of doing it. We can get rid of many things that do not need to be done. This is now being challenged in the system. Just because an Act passed this in House in 1942 why should people be doing a particular thing in 2005? If one stops and thinks about it they should be doing something else that is more useful, such as some of the things we talked about earlier this morning. The new system allows for this and there needs to be a challenge to the system so some section is not merrily continuing to do something for the sake of it when it is useless to do so. Nobody wants to be doing that job and benchmarking allows for that in an extraordinary way.

I will give one example, using disability benefits. From staff organising revised procedures the number of cases processed in three days was increased from 3% in 2003 to 29% in 2004 to 32% in 2005. With a bit if imagination, when the staff were left to it, they were quickly able to find huge productivity. That is the success of benchmarking and there are many examples, both in my Department and other Departments.

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