Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

Having explained three times how the payroll costs are to be handled, I do not wish to repeat the explanation again. On the question of Civil Service and public service modernisation or public sector reform, as it has been described, I expect the task force, which I set up on obtaining the OECD report on the matter, will report to us very shortly. The task force will set out in a coherent and schematic way how to approach dealing with the recommendations in the OECD report, which refer to the fact that while overall we have a very good public service, there are clearly areas where we can try to improve. It is our objective to put in place the means by which we can achieve this based on the task force's recommendations. That is the most comprehensive and coherent way to approach these matters.

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