Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It may be that after so much time any of us would simply not be able to see the waste. This is not a personal jibe at the Minister. I hope that when he described the systematic identification of non-wage inefficiency as a con job that was a rhetorical flourish. I doubt if he necessarily believes that.

I would like to take some minutes to explain the idea further because I really believe that if we could achieve this the very significant cuts in public expenditure which are required to balance the budget could be found in ways that do not reduce some of the services other Deputies have mentioned. The move to shared services is very welcome but it is not radical. It is something the private sector did 20 years ago. That is part of the problem. In Ireland, the public sector lags behind international good practice by some ten to 20 years in terms of efficient operations. If we can jump that and move the public sector in Ireland up to international good practice there are enormous opportunities for us to balance the budget without having to cut badly needed services.

I acknowledge some of the important changes made, for example, better and more publicly available financial information, the introduction of performance metrics and other measures. My suggestion is that if we can achieve a radical shift in culture, combined with some of the mechanical changes being made, a genuine step change in how money is spent by the public services in Ireland can be achieved. It is my experience that we must train workers to be able to systemically identify and target inefficiencies. Critically, they must be given sufficient authority and control of their own jobs and environments to be able to reduce or get rid of those inefficiencies. I have had the honour of working with public servants abroad on issues such as this. It may come as a surprise to some commentators that public servants are just as keen on reducing waste of public sector money as anybody else but they need training and authority to do this. I will give the Minister a quick example, if I may. I spoke about this on the "Frontline" programme last year and a gentleman in the audience came up to me afterwards and told me he was a council engineer who made an 80 km round trip to give physical cheques to his team every week. For years he had been telling the management there was no need to do this, that it could be done by electronic transfer which would save a lot of money. Then he told me nobody was really interested and he was not authorised to make the change. It is by finding those kinds of occurrences in schools, hospitals, county councils - and here within the Oireachtas - that this cultural shift can be achieved. There are other examples from my own work experience I can share with the Minister later, if he wishes.

What I propose is a radical change in culture. It involves giving public servants more control, trusting them more and holding them accountable. There is more but I will finish on this point as I do not want to take any more time. I offer this in good faith. There really is a great opportunity to create a step change in this regard.

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