Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The programme for Government commitment is as follows: "We will review the grading structures of the Civil Service and the Public Service and reduce the number of management grades." That is the way to go. Earlier, we debated the issues of pay and pay equity in the system. Part and parcel of delivering that, if the Government is serious about delivery, will be revisiting the grading structures not only in the Civil Service, but also the wider public service. It is odd that the Department does not have a role in transforming grades across the public service. We have had this experience on a number of occasions in the context of State agencies, which was raised by Deputy Fleming. Very often, the Department bats us back and says it is not its issue. Why do we have the Department then? It would be more than appropriate that the Department would be front and centre in driving this reform. It makes a nonsense of having the Department in the first place.

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