Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

Regarding the first point, the Department of Finance and the public service deal with public service issues on an operational basis. The Department of the Taoiseach has always co-ordinated the effort in the social partnership context of trying to promote this agenda right across the service. I work as the chairman of the Cabinet sub-committee in that respect.

Regarding the savings to be obtained by the Croke Park agreement, clearly there will be savings. These have yet to be identified, since they all have to be negotiated and costed in due course. As the Deputy knows, there is provision under the agreement to identify those savings on an annual basis and see to what purpose any part of them can be put to see if any assistance can be given to those who are on the lower pay structures during the course of the agreement. The real saving of the Croke Park agreement relates to the fact that there will be fewer moneys allocated for the provision of services. The agreement provides us the means by which we minimise service impact. We could find a situation in which we could improve services with less money, depending on how we organise those services. This will vary from place to place.

The savings the agreement provides are not simply in the context of the reduced payroll or the reduced costs of services that can be identified upon review on an annual basis. The real value of the Croke Park agreement will be the fact that it effects a new way of delivering services in a way that promotes industrial relations without conflict and, for the most part, provides us with a more sustainable level of service in future. Those savings should be identified in terms of looking at the value of this agreement for the future. If we are cutting major areas of expenditure by X%, if there is no policy change or no change in the industrial relations scenario, then the diminution in services to the public would be guaranteed. The Croke Park agreement provides the means of having sustainable services with less money, while at the same time providing a good service to the public by reason of the redeployment of civil servants that will follow from it.

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