Dan Boyle (Cork South Central, Green Party)

My amendment No. 18 has been grouped for discussion with Deputy Bruton's amendment No. 1a. While his amendment is comprehensive in its scope, my amendment seeks to address an issue which is at the core of this Bill but also a core means of defining the Civil Service and enabling it to be modernised. One of the many difficulties associated with the reform of the Civil Service is the failure to address the central philosophy that the Civil Service can and should be generalist in its make-up. We live in a fast-changing society where specialisms are required more frequently. My amendment proposes the Minister of State should present an annual report on the proportion of civil servants in specialist grades and who undertake specialist functions on behalf of the State.

This is increasingly a matter of more importance as the Minister of State is probably finding out daily when he surveys the wreck that is the Government's decentralisation policy. Those who apply for positions outside the Dublin area are hopelessly mismatched against positions requiring to be filled in various locations. Without an effective audit of the specialised and general skills within the Civil Service, the fear is that not only will the Civil Service be spread-eagled across the country in different locations but it will be quite unbalanced in terms of the skills of the people in Departments and State agencies.

The Minister of State should accept this amendment because it is vital for the future health of the Civil Service to have civil servants in specialised grades. This failure of recognition has caused significant sums of money to be lost in the past. I speak as a member of the Committee of Public Accounts. Issues as wide-ranging as residential institutions redress and the failure to properly account for the granting of medical cards to the over-70s show a lack of people with negotiating skills or skills vital to the business of Government. My understanding is there are no more than three people in the whole Civil Service employed in actuarial roles, one of whom works for the Pensions Board, the second in the Department of Social and Family Affairs and I presume the third can be found in the Department of Finance. There does not even seem to be a template in existence of what specialisations are needed in the Civil Service. This Bill does not define which specialisations might be required in the future, nor how they can be accounted and planned for and is therefore flawed legislation unless this amendment is accepted. On those grounds I am anxious to hear the Minister of State's response and whether he is willing to accept this amendment and avoid future misexpenditure, which is the grammatically incorrect but proper term. Lack of appropriate political leadership has seen money being misspent by the Civil Service in the recent past. There is a need to have people with specialised skills in place to serve the country and the Civil Service in the future.

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