Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Bill. Fianna Fáil will be supporting this Bill, which provides for the establishment of the national shared services office on a statutory basis. The office currently exists on an administrative basis within the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.

Shared services is the provision of common corporate services to a number of organisations by an independent service provider that previously were carried out by each organisation separately. It reduces the duplication of effort by consolidating transactional functions, such as finance, payroll and human resources, and ICT to enable quicker access to data and improved data quality through increased standardisation, specialisation, automation and control. As both private and public sector experiences internationally illustrate, the value of shared services include: direct cost savings and efficiency; the provision of better management information to enhance decision making; and, most importantly, the freeing up of senior management resources to focus on policy development and service delivery. However, any Bill presented by this Government to establish another quango brings to mind the promises made by the parties in the general election campaign in 2011, when they effectively promised a bonfire of quangos. Now, a new agency is being established to do this important work. Second, listening to the Minister's remarks one would think nothing had been done about shared services prior to 2013. The centres the Minister mentioned, particularly Killarney and Tullamore, were established in 2008 and 2009, and a considerable amount of work was under way towards achieving this aim prior to 2011.

There are a number of concerns that must be dealt with. I welcome some of the provision in the legislation, although we will discuss them further on Committee Stage. In recent years we have seen a constant and regular pattern, not so much in the public service but in private sector pay delivery, of payment failures by either banks or the paying agency. We must ensure that in combining all the services in shared services, particularly with regard to payment, it has the best quality information technology to ensure people are paid on time and when they are expected to be paid. They cannot be left short of their wages because of a shared services collapse. It is important that the investment in facilities and services continues to be as reliable as it is today for the public service, and that the creation of one agency does not result in a focus on costs at the cost of delivery.

Second, shared services and the information it provides should be used to enhance the public and civil service. It should not be used to drive a procurement policy that shies away from supporting local business. Procurement and procurement savings are important, but until we use procurement as a tool for job maintenance and job creation for SMEs and local suppliers, we will not use it most effectively. The use of shared services information to drive a procurement policy that is in favour of big suppliers would be wrong and would go against a proper and socially responsible procurement policy.

We must also ensure that, in taking down the silos between back office functions within Departments, we direct that culture to service delivery functions. The Minister will be used to hearing me say that. It is a sentiment he shares. It is ridiculous to have different policies in so many areas, involving the journeys of so many citizens, from Departments that contradict each other. The Department of Health will always contradict the Department of Education and Skills, which, in turn, will contradict the Department of Health. The silo nature of Government must be broken down in the services and delivery of services for children with additional needs and in many other areas. We must put our citizens and their needs first, and make easy the difficult journeys in life of citizens who face challenges for which they are not responsible. The silo nature should be broken down not just behind the office but also at the front of the office.

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In providing shared services for civil and public servants, we must also provide shared and cohesive services for the people who use those services.

I want to ensure there is accountability from the organisation directly to the Oireachtas. I welcome the Minister's commitment to do that. We cannot have a situation in which when public representatives here in the Oireachtas or at local level try to get information on behalf of those we serve, we are blocked by reason of data control or the agency not being answerable to the Oireachtas. That day has to go. Every Government agency in receipt of funding, particularly an agency that is twice the size of the Minister's Department, must be answerable to the Oireachtas and its Members, regardless of who is in government.

With those reservations and remarks, we are happy to support the Bill. We will work through Committee Stage to enhance and strengthen the safety around the Bill. Shared services and the provision of salary and pension payments in particular is a very serious operation and cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of those who want to deliver it on a "yellow pack" basis or on the basis of any less of the value than it means. We must ensure the establishment of the authority does not, knowingly or unknowingly, allow for that to happen.

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