Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the opportunity to speak in this special debate on public sector numbers. I acknowledge that time has been provided for the debate by the Government. It is probably a good time to have the debate now that 29 February has come and gone. There was much debate, discussion and anxiety in the months prior to that date. Perhaps the Minister is correct. The public might be a little jaded with the topic at this stage. However, it is important to have an objective discussion on the matter at this remove.

There is not a family in this country that is not composed of a mixture of private sector and public sector employees when they meet for Christmas dinner, a wedding, christening or funeral. I have yet to meet a family that was all in one category or another. Inevitably, because of the recession, heated debates regularly occur in most houses when there is a big social gathering involving brothers, sisters, cousins, in-laws and outlaws all assembled with different perspectives. My intention in the debate is to maintain social cohesion and not to set one group against the other because, ultimately, we all work to earn a living and everyone wants to do that to the best of his or her ability. Whether one works in the public sector or the private sector, it is important that people would do that.

It might not be popular among certain groups to say that those in the public service have taken quite a hit in recent years. A myth exists that people are getting off scot free and those in the private sector are losing their jobs. I accept that is true and there is suffering all around. I wish to refer to an interesting set of statistics that came out yesterday as part of the quarterly household survey. I looked in detail at the figures produced. Reference is made to employment in the Civil Service, the Defence Forces, the Garda Síochána, the education sector, regional bodies in the health sector and, separately, in the semi-State sector, as well as the total number in the State sector and the private sector. The figures date from 2008 to the end of 2011, which was just the other day. This will surprise people. The figures to which I refer represent people working in the public service, not whole-time equivalents. The numbers to which I refer will not correlate with the 292 to which the Minister referred. I assume when he referred to a post he referred to whole-time equivalents. We are all aware that in every walk of life in the public sector, there is an element of job sharing in some posts. At the end of 2008 a total of 21% of the workforce worked in the public sector, excluding semi-State bodies, and 25% of the entire workforce in this country at the end of 2008, out of a total workforce of 1.713 million, worked in either the public sector or the semi-State sector, and 75.1% worked in the private sector. We are all aware that our workforce, the current figure for which is 1.532 million, has reduced. The number currently employed in the public sector and semi-State area represents 25.8% of the workforce and the number employed in the private sector represents 74.2%. Four years ago, three quarters of the workforce was in the private sector. Following jobs losses in the private sector and the introduction of a moratorium and retirements in the public sector, the position remains the same, namely, 75% of the workforce is employed in the private sector and 25% is employed in the public sector, which is remarkable. These figures were published yesterday by the Central Statistics Office.

We are all aware that half of the jobs lost in the public sector were in the health sector. I will deal separately with that matter later. I recently heard a person say that the Croke Park Agreement was put in place to protect the pay of public sector staff even if this meant people had to retire or jobs were lost. What that person failed to take into account is that prior to the Croke Park agreement pension levies and pay cuts had been imposed on the public sector. There are now job losses in the public sector and pay rates for public sector employees have not increased. Many people have spoken of employers giving their employees the option of taking a 10% cut in order that all could retain their jobs or of retaining their wage and one person being let go. I believe most people would have agreed to take a small pay cut, thus keeping everyone in employment. People have forgotten in the debate on this issue that public sector employees did not have any choice but to suffer the pay cuts and pension levies. This is perhaps one of the reasons I am on this side of the House, which I understand. Anyone who does not understand this does not understand Irish society.

Many public servants did not vote for members of the previous Government in the last election because of the hit they had taken to their pockets. While I do not want to get too political now, many public servants voted for the Labour Party because they were not happy with Fianna Fáil. They might also have been afraid that Fine Gael if elected would cut their wages further. They voted for the Labour Party because they believed it would be more moderate. I hope the Labour Party lives up to their expectation. While I acknowledge that other people will have a different view in this regard, that is mine.

The Minister stated earlier that the public sector bill, which in 2008 was €17.5 billion, will reduce over a seven year period by €3.7 billion or 20% to €14 billion by 2015. Having looked at the figures again, I note that most of the reductions in the pay bill occurred between 2009-2011. The actual reduction in the pay bill for 2012-2013 will be modest.

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