Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I join my colleague, Deputy Dara Calleary, in the debate on the legislation. As he has indicated, we agree with the Bill in principle and will support anything needed to improve services and efficiencies across the public service and the Civil Service, in particular. It goes without saying we will have a detailed discussion on Committee Stage, when the points my colleague has mentioned will be teased out in detail. It is important that the Minister be open to any practical, sensible amendments made during the course of the passage of the legislation through the Oireachtas.

I will tease out some issues, although the Minister may not get an opportunity to answer before the Second Stage debate is completed. If he has answers by the time we reach Committee Stage, it will be adequate, given that it will take place before the passage of the legislation. We would like to see a detailed financial plan for the office to give us an indication of the break-even period. We have had various discussions about the shared payroll service that exists in the public service. During the first few years, there was quite an amount of up-front investment in capital, staff, training, building and equipment for a number of years. Savings will occur in Departments as time goes on once the functions transfer. How long will it take the service to break even? While it is fine to say it will save money, will it be after two, three, four, five or six years? People are entitled to know this level of detail in order that we can examine it from a business case point of view.

We will need to see the details of the cost savings in terms of staff. If the work is being done centrally, it means it is not being carried out in the individual Departments and, by definition, the staff who carried out the work in the individual Departments will be free for redeployment. In the Minister's opening statement, he said it would lead to a reduction in headcount - I do not like that phrase when we are talking about public servants - of 145. Does the Minister mean there will be a reduction in public service numbers or that 145 people will be free to improve the quality of service in their parents Departments? This needs to be clarified. Many public service bodies could do with an improvement in service, given the reduction in staff numbers during recent years.

One of my concerns about going down this road is that when everything is centralised there will be a temptation for some future Minister to outsource it all in one go to the private sector. The Minister will have to give a commitment on this. In commercial sectors, we see that major institutions outsource many of their back office procedures to the private service. When it is all consolidated in one spot, it is very easy to outsource it. While I know this is not the Minister's intention at this stage and I do not see it happening in the immediate future, it would make it very easy for it to happen down the road. The Government could contract some of it out, then more of it and, suddenly, the office is just a procurement service for outsourcing services. We must guard against this and ensure there is something in the legislation to deal with it.

On the one hand, the Minister told us it would be independent, while, on the other, he said he would have a supervisory role. Next, he will tell us there will be a board over it, and then he will tell us he will be able to hire and fire the chief executive. I am not sure whether it is independent. I would favour not complete independence, given that we live in a democracy and people should be answerable to the Oireachtas, to which people are elected to represent the public. On the question of accountability, will the Minister specify whether it will be an Accounting Officer, a chief executive or an accountable officer. "Accountable officer" is a new phrase coming into the public service, which refers to a person who is not quite an Accounting Officer but who is wheeled out to answer questions or, sometimes, not answer questions, as the case may be.

Will there be a board? Who will appoint the board? Will it go through the Public Appointments Service? Will the board appoint the chief executive, or will be Minister do it? There is a detailed section on accountability to the Oireachtas and I want the Minister to make it very clear. There will be a section in the legislation saying the chief executive will be accountable to an Oireachtas committee, as the case may be. However, this will mean there will be no accountability by way of parliamentary question. We went through this debacle with Irish Water. It was said that it would be answerable to the Oireachtas. However, once it was up and running it was not really answerable and did not answer parliamentary questions. The Health Service Executive does not answer any parliamentary questions asked here. If we put down a parliamentary question, the Minister passes it on to the parliamentary affairs division of the HSE to reply directly to the Deputy. By taking this route, the accountability to the Oireachtas is broken.

It is important that whoever is accountable from the new organisation be accountable to the line committee of the Minister's Department and, separately, to the Committee of Public Accounts. All these public bodies that are fully publicly funded for public services should be accountable to the Committee of Public Accounts. They should be separately accountable, regarding their operations, policy and procedures, to the direct line committee. It would not be right if the committee on public expenditure and reform had no access to it, if it were confined to the Committee of Public Accounts, or vice versa. It is important that we achieve this.

Under the Minister's Department there is the Office of Government Procurement. Will the new office link in with this office in due course or will there be two separate quangos? In a way, they are different aspects of it, however there are probably similarities in what the Minister is trying to achieve, namely savings across Departments, co-ordination of knowledge and information and better value for money for the Irish taxpayer. Is it planned that these would merge somewhere down the road or is it an issue for another day?

We have mentioned the facility in Clonskeagh, PeoplePoint, and the payroll shared service. So far, this affects only the Civil Service, and the line Departments which include 30,000 to 40,000 people. The local authorities have been using shared services for quite some time. A particular expertise has been built up in County Laois through Laois County Council, which handles the MyPay system for all the local authorities through the service that is managed by the Laois county manager. Approximately 70 staff there are managing the payroll and in the next month or two, the last of all the local authorities in Ireland will have transferred their payroll processing functions, including superannuation, to Portlaoise. This can be extended further to HR and other issues as time goes on. Will this link in with the office? Where does the NSSO brief begin and end? Will it extend to the public service? I do not think the Minister is dealing with the Civil Service in isolation.

I am concerned when I see the NSSO dealing in the Civil Service and, probably, extending into the public service. Will it ultimately take control of the shared services in the local authorities? I would like assurances, from a Laois perspective. The Government has invested heavily in a system which is working exceptionally well in Portlaoise and is an example of how the new office should operate. The numbers in the local authority are equally as big as the Civil Service. I would not like the NSSO to take over the work being carried out in Portlaoise under the jurisdiction of the Laois chief executive.

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