Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Absolutely. Some of them are quangos and others are public services. There is a body of work that needs to be done to improve the morale of those organisations and to translate how that work is carried out on the ground. When we remove the quangos and layers from the country, we must ensure that we do not add cost to the customer who is a service user, be it a small business, a pensioner or whatever. We must not add costs by virtue of the fact that we are reducing the number of people in there.

I know it is not in the scope of the Bill, but our commercial semi-State have got off scot free. A perfect example over the last few years has been CIE, which has required a huge cash injection from the State. While semi-State companies like to work at arm's length from the Government during the good days and we cannot go in and ask for redeployment, salary cuts and so on, when things go wrong they turn to the Government to inject the cash. The Government should be demanding more from the leadership in those organisations. CEOs of public utilities that are running up huge losses are being paid multiples of the Minister's salary and the Taoiseach's salary, both of whom are ultimately responsible for the running of the country, and there is something seriously wrong with that. They have three or four times the salary of the Taoiseach, and a pension pot to boot, yet they know that there is an insurance policy in the guise of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, so that when the cash injection is needed, it will be provided. Much more needs to be done in that area in respect of salaries for those at the top, the structures in place and the services that are offered. These services must be offered at a competitive rate that reflects the commercial reality that many of these companies still monopolise.

There has been much work done in a short period of time by the current Government on public expenditure and on how we deliver public services. We have been very lucky that we have managed to do that with industrial peace. It is very important to acknowledge the role of people in the public services over the last few years who have accepted serious changes to their terms and conditions of employment, their salaries and their take-home pay, and all this has had an impact on their families as well. The same has happened in the private sector. We have made these changes by maintaining industrial peace. That is critical to how Ireland Inc. is portrayed abroad. How would this country be perceived internationally if we had, on top of everything else, the type of scenes that have taken place in some of the Mediterranean countries where public services might or might not function on any given day? Our public services have never let us down. They function. Our airports are always open, people always turn up to work, our children are being taught and our patients are being seen in hospitals. We need to acknowledge and, where possible, reward that. The structure in which to do that is in the framework that was set out by the Government under the Haddington Road agreement, when the Government and trade union representatives came to an agreement, albeit after an initial speed ramp. We have managed to do that and maintain public services at the level to which we have become accustomed. I would like to have that acknowledged.

The initial remarks that I made have not yet filtered into the halls of Leinster House. The record should show that not a single representative of the Opposition has come in here, but they will appear on "The Week in Politics" and will talk about reform. They should be in here, but they are not and they are notable by their absence. If they want real Dáil reform like they claim, the first place they should look for it is in the Chamber of the Dáil.

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