Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The pensions were for civil servants only. If that had happened in a local authority where it had trouble in the last month of the year meeting the payments for its retired workers, it would have had to have found the money for those pensions out of its own resources and make the necessary cuts.

Civil servants, however, were able to walk into the Minister, Deputy Howlin's office and say: "Minister, we need money for the retired civil servants". There was no mention of retired council workers or any retirees in other State agencies who do not have the same access to the Minister.

The issue of public sector pay and reform was not sufficiently dealt with here today. We have had some reform and the Minister has spoken a lot about abolishing quangos. In 2011, he said that 48 agencies would be abolished or merged by the end of 2013 but we can see that will not happen. One third of the 48 State agencies earmarked for abolition or merger in 2012 will have completed the process by the end of the year, but the others will not. In addition, of the 46 planned for 2013 it appears that only half of them will be on time. Part of this is down to the failure to pass legislation in this Chamber by the respective line Ministers who are obviously putting up a resistance.

The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform makes great play about efficiencies, shared services and public sector reform. I support the principle of shared services whether it operates across the HSE, local authorities, the Garda Síochána or Government Departments, including the Department of Education and Skills. The public have seen one example of what this Government means by sharing services and that is the third-level grant processing scheme, commonly known as SUSI.

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