Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We have been appalling at building good institutional frameworks. We keep on ending up with inquiries and reports at the end of which we are told it is down to system failure. We are the ones who need to build the systems and I am highlighting where the systems are failing. The largest class sizes happen to be in Kildare, Meath and Fingal with 10% more pupils per class in those counties - the counties with the largest growth in births. Why can we not build the prediction of need into the service in order to deliver an equality of service as people are entitled to expect?

We saw exactly the same thing when the HSE was filling positions involving occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, psychological services, staff nurses, community nurses, etc. There were 208 positions and 58 of them went to the Tallaght, Kildare and west Wicklow area. We cannot continue to have parts of the country that for one service or another are at the wrong end of the spectrum. There must be a design feature that accommodates that. However, I do not see that in this legislation, which does not allow for the kinds of numbers - nor should it do so. While public services are about public servants, first and foremost they are about the citizens and an equality of service without such disparities.

I believe there are things the Minister can do. I am a great fan of using technology to lighten the load on administration and frontload things. Norway built a platform for the delivery of public services covering three or four municipalities and most of its public services. It has reduced its requirement for administration by about 17% and has saved the equivalent $7 billion over a fairly short period of time. It is about identifying the need to invest in the services to gain the benefit on the other side. Revenue's online service is a very good system but has not been systematically rolled out as extensively as it should be. If we want to make strategic use of money to stimulate something and get a permanent return, we need that kind of thing here, but it needs to be on a large scale.

I do not oppose the notion of flexibility in the system but we are long overdue a debate on the future of our public services and how people will interact with them. It needs to be articulated in a way such that we are not just tinkering at the edges but building services in which people will be proud to work. They should be almost queuing to go from one to the other because they will get stimulation when they go into work. I feel very sorry for some of the public servants with whom I interact. I know they are snowed under with criticism and complaint because they are overloaded and essentially trying to do the job of two or three people. I do not oppose the flexibility, but so much more needs to be done. I am very frustrated that the place where I happen to live is disadvantaged in so many ways and I want to see that changed.

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