Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I have an open mind on how we provide services. As I stated, the criteria are what provides the best service to the public on a cost-effective basis, complies with all legal requirements and is efficient. Sometimes that will be an in-house service where there are significant skills built over time. Sometimes it will be a bought-in service because there are large private companies which have skills developed that it would not make sense to replicate. For example, for years every hospital had its own laundry where the unit cost of doing laundry in some of the hospitals was phenomenal whereas there are now very large industrial-scale laundries which are merely much more efficient. It makes no sense to replicate scores of laundries as opposed to using one large commercial one. There are horses for courses.

Deputy Boyd Barrett spoke about individual skill sets like cleaners or security staff. In many instances, it makes sense, because of the uniqueness or isolation of a place, to have full-time staff members do that sort of work. On other occasions, if they are in a city, one has competent firms doing it. As long as there is robust and transparent evaluation, we can make rational decisions. In my Department where we do the evaluations, we would be open to test any analysis done by a trade union or anybody else.

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