Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

Pay increases recommended under that process were conditional on real and verifiable outputs with regard to modernisation and flexibility. There were conditions attached to the payment. In some cases where there was a delay in agreed modernisation or flexibility was not forthcoming, the payments were also delayed until such time as that was delivered. It is not right to say there was no conditionality attached to the process. What is clear, however, is that there is a need and an opportunity to accelerate change in how we deliver our public services for the benefit of citizens who require them, based on both the financial realities we must now contend with and in the interests of enabling and empowering those who are involved in the work of providing public services being able to do so as cost effectively and efficiently as possible, incorporating best practice in every respect and consistent with the principles of public accountability. That is an ongoing process that will have to be accelerated. Taking on the challenge of that change is not easy or simple but it must be pursued, and it is better to proceed with it on the basis of agreement that everybody has the shared objective of providing public services in this country by giving the best possible value to the taxpayer.

The Deputy mentioned an anecdote related to him recently. The question of being able to share information and providing the necessary technology for transferring information across the system in a consistent way, which is also consistent with data protection issues, is on the agenda. Some progress has been made, although it is greater in some Departments than in others. Good examples in that respect are the Revenue Commissioners, the Department of Social and Family Affairs and the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. There has been a transformation in those Departments and offices in recent years in terms of the ability to provide very substantive payments on an ongoing basis, on time and directly to the people entitled to the payments. The need to provide that best practice model across the system and to share the information in a way that would lessen the amount of time required for information to be collated and dealt with by individual Departments or service providers is something we must examine.

See this speech in context