Paul McGrath (Westmeath, Fine Gael)

I wish to share time with Deputy Ring.

The review body on higher remuneration in the public sector in its report No. 38 of September 2000 considered that performance related awards for managers and assistant managers of local authorities were appropriate. The situation evolved so that managers of local authorities made submissions to a committee for performance awards in the local government sector under the chairmanship of the Secretary General of the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. The procedure is that the county manager makes a submission setting out his or her goals for the upcoming year and it is approved by the committee. At the end of the year, the manager reports back saying how well he or she did. It costs local authorities a total of €2.1 million annually, which must be paid out of their budgets. The average payment to the recipients is €10,000 per annum.

While I welcome this good initiative, nobody outside the committee can access the submissions to establish what they contain or the performance, tasks and so on undertaken by the county managers. How can we have a realistic idea of whether they earn the awards? One cannot acquire the documents under the Freedom of Information Act 1997. I raised this with the Taoiseach at a meeting of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Finance and the Public Service. He was astonished and said I should get the documentation. He said he would see to it but nothing happened. One cannot even get a glimpse of these submissions.

The original terms of reference of the scheme stated local authority chairman should be given a copy of the submissions or at least a synopsis of them but this has been rowed back on. Additional moneys are awarded to senior local authority staff by the committee, which does not visit local authorities to speak to the chairman, members or staff. It is done entirely on a paper assessment. It is incorrect that this documentation should not be available. While I do not want to know who earns how much, I want to know the goals that are set, how they are assessed and what scrutiny is in place to ensure the assessment takes place.

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