Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to do so if the Leas-Cheann Comhairle allows me to. I brought a proposal to Government yesterday on foot of the analysis that has concerned me for some time. If someone asked me my greatest concern as Minister over the past number of months, it is the unallocated savings facing the economy next year and in 2014. The medium-term fiscal framework set out expenditure reductions in social welfare, health and across every line Department. At the end of that, a gift from the previous Government is the unallocated savings, which must either be farmed out to individual Departments by making further cuts on top of those already outlined or we must look for another way of dealing with them.

I have been grappling with that for some time. My strong view is that we need to look at 35% of all current expenditure, which is the pay bill, to see if we can get more from that.

I am calling this a Croke Park extension. I want to maintain the principles of Croke Park, which are no compulsory redundancies and the maintenance of core pay. We need to get pay savings, however, and I will be tabling a variety of means to deal with that. I have invited the unions to talk to me next week in order that I can set out my stall. The profiling I am looking for is to begin the process of additionality next year. In the existing pay savings profile I am aiming to reduce the pay bill by 20% by 2015, which is a quantum, in net terms, of about €3.3 billion. I am now proposing that we look for an additional €1 billion over those three years so that the annualised pay saving by 2015 would be an additional €1 billion.

This will be challenging and difficult. The way I have set out to do this is through longer working hours in the public service, changing the framework of the working week, and so on. I do not want to be too prescriptive until I have had a chance to lay out my stall to the public sector unions. I will keep the House informed because this is an important endeavour. If we can sign off on an agreement before the middle of next year we can start the savings next year so that public servants will have a sense of security between now and the end of this Dáil. They will know where they are and can spend and work with security. It will also give security to the Government to know that our ambitious target of bringing the public finances into balance, having a deficit of less than 3% by 2015, will be achieved.

See this speech in context