Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

When he was president of the IFA, did the Minister of State ever think he would come in here and give a "Sir Humphrey" answer of the nature of the one he just read out? He has informed us that being accountable to democratically elected people here would be burdensome and inflexible and would put the public service into a straitjacket. Where is the great zeal he had in the past for demanding results and demanding performance from the public service? Now that he has a chance to do something about it, he says that it cannot be done as it would be too upsetting to many people and that we already have many accountability structures. These are so vast that no one can understand them at any one time.

In reality, spreading accountability through reporting to different bodies and monitoring committees but never to the Dáil means that elected Members do not have the capacity to hold public servants accountable in any meaningful way. We need to drill down to make those specifically responsible come before us and account for the way in which devolution is occurring and the way in which the SMI is being delivered, which is not happening. On any fair assessment we are not achieving from the public service the sort of pace of reform to deliver value for money and high performance. Public servants need such a system and need the pressure of accountability from the Oireachtas to deliver such performance. The Minister of State is standing with his finger in the dyke claiming it cannot happen. If the Minister of State casts his mind back a few years, could he have believed he would deliver such a reply in the House when the occasion for addressing public service accountability arose?

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