Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

It is not only ridiculous but wrong to say public services have ground to a halt. A total of 287,000 public servants are working very hard to provide a very fine public service to people. Of course there are pressures, because we are in a situation where we have downsized and where we have to reduce expenditure as we do not have the capacity to spend. We cannot spend money we do not have. The whole focus of the reform agenda is to reprioritise to the front line, to the very services Deputy Boyd Barrett talked about, by making the rational decisions about shared services, reducing administration, doing things much more efficiently and providing for front-line services such as the additional social care workers and resource teachers to which I referred. The aim is to put those into the front line of delivery in order that people can have a good experience.

The Deputy's view is that in an ideal world the answer to everything is to provide whatever is demanded by anybody and to be popular. In the real world, where there are finite resources, we are making rational decisions to ensure we optimise the value for the money we have in terms of the quality of the services we deliver for the people who depend upon them.

See this speech in context