Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I would like to see that definition work its way through to what people do. Does it refer to someone in a housing department of a local authority who spends years dealing with the housing crisis that successive Governments have caused and who has to deal with the public and the vast and growing waiting lists? Is it the view that because they are simply clerical officers and generalists we can shove them over somewhere on the other side of the city to do something else? Is it not the case that they have actually built up skills, knowledge and abilities in their particular area? To refer to them as generalists in that way is, in some cases, although not in all cases, bordering on insulting. Whatever the job, people build up a knowledge and expertise of their particular areas. This is valuable knowledge and experience and people should not be redeployed willy-nilly because of the need to meet troika targets, balance the books or simply to find a way to manage the chaos that has resulted from taking the knife to the public sector in order to impose the Government's austerity agenda.

I have a specific question for the Minister, Deputy Howlin. If I am correct, there is an exclusion for staff from the Central Bank and the NTMA from these redeployments. Is this because they are such specialist people that they cannot possibly be redeployed, while other more generalist people can be redeployed? Why the exclusions?

I am not against flexibility. I am not against an integrated public service. I want to see these things but they should not be imposed on people. I know of situations where this has happened. For example, people working in the hospital in Loughlinstown for the HSE were told they had to go to work in Finglas. These were mothers with children and families but they were told they would have to travel an extra two hours each way each day to get to work in what is supposedly a reformed but actually dysfunctional new medical card regime, which has been established essentially because of cuts. Under this regime no one can talk to a human being any more when they have problems with their medical cards. The reality is that the Government's reform policy amounts to fewer people doing more work for less money and now possibly being forced to travel further to work or forced to redeploy against their will. Any scheme should be completely voluntary. The Minister should talk to the workforce. I imagine many of them might wish to move on and develop their skills and so on or get experience in other sectors of the public sector, but it should be discussed with them not imposed on them.

A scheme to allow people to work closer to home should also be included. That would be a good reform. If there was a scheme whereby we tried to move people closer to home in order that they did not have to travel ridiculous distances to get to work, with all the resulting congestion problems and all the stress this causes for those people, it would be effective and the Minister should seriously consider it. That could be an option for people that would improve their quality of life and morale which, in turn, might actually contribute to higher levels of productivity and enthusiasm in their work. If the Minister seeks a reformed public service he should support public sector workers rather than slash their pay, impose things on them, squeeze the life out of them - this is what is happening to many - or put them on the border of not being able to pay bills and mortgages. That is hardly conducive to a reformed public sector. This is what I suggest the Minister should do to try to amend the Bill.

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