Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy and I appreciate the time he has given to me. Tomorrow, a group is coming from the MABS organisations throughout the country to do a presentation on this in the audio-visual room. There are 51 boards, each of which is independent and managed by local people from the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, the Garda Síochána, the Department of Social Protection and various agencies and organisations in the communities where they exist. They have local knowledge and input and they give their time freely to manage the organisations. The system works perfectly and without a hitch, and has done since the establishment of the MABS organisations.

The MABS companies have an excellent model for value for money. The spend 80% of their funds on the salaries of the people who provide the front-line services. The other 20% goes to rent the offices and pay overheads.

It is absolutely perfect and it works well with no issues. The situation is that a group in the Citizens Information Board, CIB, wants to regionalise the set-up of existing services, assigning them to eight different regions, and employ a manager to run each agency in each region. I fear it is intended to privatise the service, like Seetec which provides services through JobPath and which has turned into a total disaster for the public. We do not want to let this service go down that road.

The Minister needs to issue a policy directive to the CIB under section 9 of the Citizens Information Act 2007 not to regionalise these boards. It was done before in 2009 by a previous Minister and it can be done again. This issue can be resolved. There is a perfect system working well, providing a good service and which is not broken. There is no reason to change it. The only reason seems to be that some people in the Civil Service have decided they would like to have regional organisations and structures, set up boards and get money for running up and down the country for different meetings. The reality is that the system is working and we do not want it changed. People are getting an excellent service. The only problem is that there are not enough advisers from the Money Advice & Budgeting Service, MABS, on the ground. That is what needs to change. It is not about putting more money into providing managers to run a system which is not broken.

I know the Minister of State will have a reply from someone in the Civil Service, telling him to read out the answer. We are not interested in that answer. We are interested in a bit of common sense being applied. Even after being in the Government for only nine months, the Minister of State still has a bit of common sense left which I hope can be magnified today and a solution can be provided.

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