Niall Collins (Limerick, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This is a very important national issue. Nobody has a monopoly of opinions or wisdom. No particular political party acts as the single spokesperson for the trade union movement or the public sector. We are all public representatives and entitled to reflect the views on both sides of the debate. It is disrespectful to Members who all have a mandate to have to listen to members of the Labour Party trying to assert that they are the only spokespersons for public servants and public sector workers. The trade union movement will confirm that this is not the case.

Public servants were taken for granted by the Government throughout the talks process. That is the view they have expressed to me and many others. Unfortunately for the country, the result has shown that they have been taken for granted and the process is now paralysed.

A completely new model of social partnership will be required. For too long we have relied on the existing model which has been in use since the early 1990s. There has been a succession of national partnership agreements which have worked in some fashion. However, history has shown that they have not worked as well as they might have. The current model which is now bust pits employer against employee, larger unions against smaller unions, and the private sector against the public sector. It is very divisive and being played out every day. It is undermining the national mood and dominating the national debate. I agree that it is important to have social cohesion and social harmony and avoid any form of social unrest. Unfortunately, we are heading headlong into that storm and we need to make an effort to remove ourselves from that course of action.

The agreement was reached following all-night talks. The parties were, effectively, in a bunker in Lansdowne House. They were locked in until they came out with an agreement. It is similar to how a pope is elected by having to wait until the white smoke appears. That is not the way to do business which should be conducted in an open and constructive manner. Locking in the parties builds momentum for arriving at a deal at any cost. As we have seen, arriving at a deal at any cost results in a lot of collateral damage. The GRA, the AGSI and the 24-7 front-line workers alliance, left the talks process. This was not good because the process must be inclusive.

The morning after the agreement was finally reached I took part in a panel discussion on a radio show with a Minister. I will not name the person concerned because she is not in the Chamber. The Government's spin was that the agreement was fair and proportionate, yet the detail of the deal had not been published and the same Minister had not read it. However, she told radio listeners that the deal was fair and proportionate.

People were being taken for granted, but society has moved on. The spin and the sound bite have to be taken out of the presentation by the Government. People want an honest presentation of the facts and figures. The Government lost the dressing room straightaway in that regard. It lost the public servants throughout the process because trade unions and some associations had been marginalised. A new form of social partnership is needed which should be inclusive of the non-trade union groups and associations such as the GRA and the AGSI. I refer to the demonstration held in the basketball arena in Tallaght while the talks were in progress. It was a powerful demonstration by the groups involved and rank and file workers.

At that point, the alarm bells should have been ringing and the Government should have sat up and realised it was in trouble and could not rely on the old guard and the larger trade unions to get the deal over the line. Lessons must be learned from that.

The Government will learn the lessons from the weaknesses of the Croke Park II process, but we also need to discuss the wider issue of reform. Many of the reforms that took place under Croke Park I are positive. Unfortunately, much of what was intended never happened. It was never really discussed in the House that every working day of the week, disputes were taking place in the Labour Court and Labour Relations Commission on issues that had been taken as read under Croke Park I. It should not have happened. There is an onus on public sector workers and their employers and the unions to avoid that type of thing. If something is agreed, it should not require the clogging up of the Labour Court or Labour Relations Commission to interpret it. Squabbles and disputes which should not be taking place are holding back the effectiveness of the public service. If Croke Park II or Croke Park III, or whatever the Government intends to call it, achieves anything, it should address situations in which retired teachers are brought back to fill temporary posts or provide substitution, holiday, maternity or illness cover. There is a cohort of young, highly qualified teachers who are eager and crying out for jobs. They have commitments and families to rear and mortgages to pay. The Minister of State, Deputy Brian Hayes, has them in his own constituency. It is not good enough for the Government to say that boards of management are the employers and that the Department cannot interfere as it merely pays the salaries. We must take greater ownership of that issue in particular.

I ask Deputy Brian Hayes to clarify, as Minister of State in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, the issue of the Garda payroll budget. It has been widely reported that the payroll budget provided to the Garda this year is sufficient to pay for a force complement of only 12,000. It was reported by Tom Brady and no denial was issued by the Department of Justice and Equality. I sought the relevant documents under the Freedom of Information Act, but my request was declined. The Department informed me that the documents could not be released as they were subject to ongoing negotiation. I am told the Garda force will have to be reduced and that the vehicle for achieving cuts in numbers will be to offer a three-year career break. If the roster is based on a complement of 13,000, where are we going? Is the new roster going to collapse? At a point in time when we need new recruitment into the Garda, it is regrettable that the Minister for Justice and Equality is resiling from it. I will be taking up the matter up with him.

The commercial semi-state sector must come under greater focus when we consider the new form of social partnership, which we should be debating tonight. The inflated salaries of CEOs and top-line management in those bodies affect every citizen directly through the cost to the consumer of products and services. It is a significant issue. Those salaries must be dealt with. It is not good enough to treat the commercial semi-State sector like the banks and say the Government takes a hands-off approach. If the State is a shareholder, it must have a direct input. On public sector reform, recruitment, promotion, discipline and leadership, I note that managers must be empowered to lead. There is an issue with the recruitment of managers currently. For example, has even one local authority manager come from the private sector? I am aware of only two directors of services having come from the private sector. These are self-perpetuating bodies which are running an old boys' club.

The Labour Party says Fianna Fáil gave the banks a blank cheque, but that is not the case. I deflect that bit of populism. I will not even go down the road of discussing the Labour Party's refusal to exercise its mandate on Richie Boucher at today's annual general meeting.

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