Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)

In asking this question, I was trying to visualise how these cuts will be delivered and managed sector by sector. I believe that public service reform was needed long before the crash happened, and I think the Minister would agree with that. One of the things that needs to be achieved is that we get the right people with the right skills in the right locations if we are to have such a major reduction in numbers. If we end up rehiring people on a contract basis or an agency basis, this will defeat the purpose of the reform. We get one chance at this.

I produced a document on this and I will give a copy of it to the Minister later. It is about this very point. There are wide differences in the quality of public services, depending on where people live. We have used this historic model, rather than looking at patterns of growth. The areas that tend to do disproportionately poorly are those that are expanding and have a young demographic. These have the greatest need for public services. The point is made by the examples I have used. I will pass these on to the Minister, for what it is worth. Essentially, I am trying to get a sense of what kind of roadmap we have to make sure we target this kind of inequality of service provision while at the same time protecting front-line services in the context of the changes that are inevitably going to happen.

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