Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)

I asked the same question of the Minister in the autumn. As per the Minister's reply, I sought and obtained, and continue to receive, statistics on the number of contract and temporary staff in the public sector from various agencies operating under the aegis of his Department and, crucially, the comparison between the cost to the Exchequer of employing agency staff versus direct employees.

It seems to me that a Government that is willing and able to impose brutal cuts and austerity on people on social welfare such as rent allowance and so on and on the incomes of workers should show the same zeal in terms of ensuring we are getting value for money when it comes to the massive amount of outsourcing that is resulting from the cuts in the number of directly employed people within the public service.

See this speech in context