Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I regard it as a rather simplistic notion to suggest that the structure of the Department of the Public Service is the determining factor as to what level of public service reform can be achieved. In successive social partnership agreements over the past seven agreements since the era to which the Deputy refers, there has been far more public service reform available under social partnership than there had been by the diktat of any particular Department of the Public Service.

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