Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

I agree with much of what the Deputy said. I am anxious to amass as much data on all public expenditure as possible. Bluntly, however, I was more than surprised - let me put it in a kind way - at the lack of overview of all public expenditure that resided in the former Department of Finance. Some of the detailed questions the Deputy raised over the past 12 months have helped to expose this issue. We are pulling all of that together but there is always a conflict between the total cost of implementing certain initiatives and the value one gets from them. As we move towards our objective of an integrated public service we have discovered all the various arrangements. For example the Deputy will have seen that arrangements for leave and sick pay vary across agencies and Departments. We will have a commonality about that and we are working might and main to do that. In the context of doing all that we will have a much more integrated overview of every issue including increments.

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