Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

The implementation body for the Croke Park agreement published its first annual progress report in June 2011. The report examined the savings and reforms delivered in the first year of the agreement and found that sustainable pay bill savings in the order of €289 million had been achieved during the review period. It also reported that solid and measurable progress had been made on implementing the action plans for reform in each sector, while pointing to certain issues that needed to be accelerated. The interim report published by the body in November provided further evidence of progress on the delivery of change and reform right across the public service.

The second annual review of the agreement is scheduled to take place after Easter 2012 and will assess the savings achieved in the second year of the agreement. As before, it also will scrutinise the level of progress being made on implementing the reform programmes in each sector, and I look forward to the outcome of that review.

The Government has indicated that the public service agreement represents a key enabler in meeting its fiscal targets under the obligations arising from the EU-IMF joint programme of assistance. The quarterly returns made to date by the Government under the programme on public service numbers and the pay bill have indicated that the numbers of public servants are falling and are on track to meet the targets set by the Government. As I announced in my Dáil speech, the Government has set a target of €400 million in payroll savings this year. As I have stated, the Government aims to reduce the overall cost of paying public servants to deliver public services by €3.5 billion or approximately 20% in the seven-year period to 2015. This will be achieved through substantially reduced numbers as well as through the pay cuts that were applied in 2010 and through ongoing pension related deductions. The Croke Park agreement enables these ongoing reductions in pay bills to be delivered on a planned basis in an environment of industrial peace.

The Government reaffirms its commitments under the Croke Park agreement on pay rates and job security for serving public servants. I have stated repeatedly that these commitments are contingent on delivery of the necessary flexibilities and reforms that will be required. Paragraph 1.28 of the Croke Park agreement states: "The implementation of this Agreement is subject to no currently unforeseen budgetary deterioration." While I do not wish to speculate about what might happen into the future, I have no proposals to invoke that clause.

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