Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)

At Department level, a series of high level units have been set up in various Departments to determine how the public services could accommodate the retirements with the least disruption to public services. Those units are working with the Departments, Ministers and local managers to ensure the smooth transition to the new staffing arrangements. Within the health sector in particular there has been detailed planning at national, regional and site specific levels to manage proactively the impact for front-line services of staff retirements under the grace period. In the development of national service plans, all factors, including budgets, staffing levels and the impact of retirements, have been factored in, and that applies to regional service plans as well.

The principal focus is on protecting and maintaining critical services such as emergency departments, maternity care, critical care and neonatal services. The Health Service Executive is seeking to mitigate the impact of these retirements through the implementation of national clinical programmes, targeted investment and recruitment as set out in the national service plan, and utilising the provisions of the public service agreement to bring about greater flexibilities, together with co-operation from the unions. Some of the initiatives that have been taken include the reform of the supply chain management and the inventory, greater sharing of IT facilities, which we should have done years ago, and revision where there is an overlap in services. Overtime payments are down by in excess of 5% since 2008. Revised working arrangements in hospital laboratory services are set to deliver savings of €5 million per annum. The number of principal officers has fallen by more than 7%. Senior management, namely, assistant secretaries, has fallen by 4.6% in the same period. Flexible redeployment is critical to the agreement's capacity to support the large reduction in staff which the recovery of the economy requires. Without redeployment, gaps that will appear owing to retirements and departures will have to be filled by recruiting replacement staff. I thank public sector workers for their participation in the process and its success to date. There is an additional safeguard. The Public Appointments Service has put in place a system of resource panels to support redeployment and an online tool is being developed to support the programme.

It is clear that, despite fiscal constraints, many public servants have been succeeding in delivering service enhancements that will make a tangible difference to the public and Irish businesses. To meet these expectations as numbers fall, the use of resources must improve through revised work practices, significant reform and reorganisation, providing for more shared services, organisational restructuring and greater innovation, and recognizing the much greater availability of online services. To achieve savings without recourse to further pay cuts, staff and their representatives must urgently deliver savings and efficiencies. We have already seen great improvements such as the centralisation of the medical card processing unit which I was lucky enough to visit last week.

See this speech in context