Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

Deputy Kenny and I regularly discuss problem areas in the health service. It is not me that people should congratulate. They should congratulate the staff in the health services. Across a large part of our health services, including cardiac surgery, children's cardiac surgery, liver transplants and maternity services, we are up there with the very best. We have eminent teams of consultants and other medical staff. More than 3,500 people were surveyed, far more than normally would be surveyed in consumer and political surveys, and it showed the level of satisfaction in percentage terms is approximately from the mid eighties to the early nineties. Of 52 accident and emergency departments, there are problems in half a dozen, or eight or ten at times. However, across the health sector, we have a service of which we can and should be immensely proud. There are problems in some areas and we must continue to provide resources and work to resolve these.

In regard to benchmarking, I have no difficulty with consistently seeking transparency showing why increases should be given, which should be the basis of it. Where there is movement in pay in line with the public or private sector, issues should be agreed and put forward. In the last programme, Towards 2016, it was agreed to build on previous achievements in the modernisation of the public service to provide more responsive better quality customer services, which is happening, and better management of performance both individually and organisationally. There is better financial and human resource management right across the Civil Service, although that might not apply to the entire public service. The Civil Service has implemented new financial management and human resources systems that are far better than they were even five years ago. There is also a greater flexibility to openness and change, including the extension of opening hours so that services open earlier in the mornings and later in the evenings. The Civil Service has reformed the system to widen the use of open recruitment to take account of the requirements of a modern public administration and the age profile of civil servants. It has taken some years but that is the difficulty with industrial relations. Co-operation has been introduced in the form of shared services between public and related organisations and there are many other areas where initiatives have been taken. Some believe public servants should do these things as a matter of course and should not be paid for them but that is not the way the system works.

A huge number of technology-related issues emerged from the last benchmarking discussions. Access to services has been enhanced through information technology and there is now 24-hour access to information in the Civil Service and other public services. The motor tax on-line system came directly from discussions involving local authorities. In the area of agriculture, food e-services were developed for livestock registration, identification and movement, which has been hugely important to farmers and those involved in the food sector throughout the country. The Revenue on-line service is considered probably the best in the modern world and has been studied and followed by others. There has been huge progress in the area of social welfare, where 1 million payments per week can now be made in a very efficient way. Other initiatives relating to the General Register Office and visa office came out of the benchmarking process. The single farm payment scheme was sorted out on the basis of people committing themselves, in benchmarking negotiations, to doing things in a different way. The scheme used to be a very difficult area and Members, particularly those from rural areas, will remember all the difficulties we had with agricultural payments in previous years.

If Deputy Kenny asks me whether there is much more that can be done then my answer is "Yes" — I readily admit that. A huge amount of change is still necessary and many new initiatives will be required in the next round. If any Ministers stood up in the House and said they could not remember three benefits in their own Departments they must not have asked the question but I do not believe that to be the case. There has been a huge amount of progress in every Department.

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