Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I am speaking only about the cost involved. The Minister stated that there will be a 20% reduction in the cost of the public sector pay bill. However, when one adds the cost of the pay bill to the cost of the pensions bill, the actual reduction achieved between 2008 and 2015 will be only 12% or 13%, which while only a modest reduction is to be welcomed.

We have had several opportunities to debate maintenance of front-line services, accident and emergency units and so on and I will not get into that now. However, it is important there is flexibility within the public service and that the Croke Park agreement delivers in this regard. I will give some examples. Currently people engaged in administrative work can be redeployed to free up staff to assist in the delivery of front line services. For example, the employment of clerical staff in the Garda Síochána has allowed gardaí to do more policing work in terms of enforcement of the law and prevention and detection of crime and so on.

I would like now to revisit an issue which first arose many years ago. One of the challenges of the Croke Park agreement will be elimination of the different pay anomalies and arrangements in the public service, including the differing levels of annual leave for county managers. One particular example - this matter arose many times at Committee of Public Accounts meetings - in respect of which the previous Administration got a great deal of flack, is the cost and failure of the PPARs system in the HSE. The system is working well in many parts of the country. On the last occasion a chief executive from the HSE was before the Committee of Public Accounts it was stated that a hold had been put on rolling it out countrywide.

The key point is that when structures within the HSE were examined, in terms of pay, holiday leave entitlements and so on, 2,700 different arrangements were identified. There were more than 50 different rostering schedules in respect of porters, who open and close doors. I am told that these arrangements were put in place by county health committees which later became regional health boards and subsequently the Health Service Executive. An attempt was made to computerise the payroll system within the HSE. However, I believe that the operation on the ground should have been streamlined before this commenced. Had that been done, computerisation of the payroll system would have been easier. An attempt was also made to computerise the 2,700 different local arrangements in place.

We all know that staff in some hospitals get an hour off to attend mass on a holy day, a half day off to attend a local festival, time off to cash their cheques, despite that they are no longer paid by cheque and so on. Staff in the Defence Forces who live within 100 km of the Border are still being paid allowances for Border duty. Up to recently, new recruits were being paid Border duty allowances despite that such duty is no longer done. All of these issues need to be addressed through the Croke Park agreement. I will be impressing on the chairman of the implementation body the need for him to produce a comprehensive report on the Croke Park agreement. If he does not, the public will lose confidence in it. I will tell Mr. Fitzpatrick, who is a man of great competence, that in the public interest he needs to deliver a report which details Department by Department what shortcomings or good news has been identified. The public is not interested in hearing about overall cost savings. It is important, if the Croke Park agreement is to be continued, that the public retains confidence in it.

A point often forgotten in the debate on this issue is that the Croke Park agreement brought about a level of industrial peace. We have not had the type of disputes or protests witnessed in Greece. Many people will say public servants have not gone on strike because they have retained their well paid jobs. Many public servants are not well paid.

Members can concentrate on another day on the coterie of people who are in receipt of more than €100,000. While I acknowledge they exist and this is too high, most people in the public service who I meet have pay packets of approximately €500 per week. Moreover, many public servants who work in my local authority probably are eligible for social housing, such is the level of their income, and this must be taken into account.

People must realise what would be the impact of the absence of industrial peace. For example, what would a hiccup in the health service lasting one to three weeks do to the waiting lists? All elective surgery would be postponed and accident and emergency activity would be postponed for several days. I acknowledge people working in the health service would never walk off the job and fail to deal with urgent, emergency cases, but industrial action would add to the backlog and probably would set back public access to the health services by several months, as measured by waiting lists. It would be the same were anything to happen in the education sector. I do not believe the Government ever should be soft in giving pay simply to buy industrial peace, but it would be the same story in respect of social welfare. If people did not receive cheques or money into their bank accounts every Thursday morning, there would be revolution on the streets.

In debates like this, it is important for Members to remember that people no longer live from week to week but are living day to day. Today is Thursday and many people in Ireland have not eaten since Tuesday. I have met people in my constituency who had no heating in their houses. In that context, I will say something extraordinary: this recession has an aroma. I now regularly meet people who, due to their poverty, lack the money for fuel to heat their houses. Their clothes become damp when they go outdoors and, on their return home, they lack heating in their houses to dry their clothes. When one meets such people the next day, there is a smell of damp clothes in the air. People should begin to realise this is the current position. Although calling up the lorry to fill up the tank with central heating oil may be fine for some people, it is different for other people, both in my constituency and that of the Minister. The main oil distributors in County Laois and elsewhere allow people to fill a five-gallon drum to bring home enough heating oil to keep the central heating in their houses running for a week. This is the state to which people have been reduced. People used to speak of being obliged to draw water but at present, some people are drawing central heating oil home in five-gallon drums. This is the level of poverty that obtains at present and, consequently, Members seek to protect the current level of social welfare payments. While Members can get all hot and bothered in the Chamber about the big issues, they must remember that poverty levels are increasing and such people must be the focus of their attention.

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