Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

When the Civil Service renewal programme was launched in 2014 it unfortunately suffered over-hype from its early stages, which is now the dominant approach to all Government plans. At the end of the implementation period in 2017 it was declared both that the renewal plan had been implemented and that reporting would continue to ensure that the plan would be implemented. If we are honest, there have been ongoing improvements in the Civil Service over a period of 40 years. The Irish Civil Service appears to rate highly internationally in respect of efficiency and effectiveness. Problems certainly arise from the growing politicisation of all aspects of the public services, and this is a serious issue. However, I believe the core integrity of the service remains.

The core problem today continues to be the ability to attract and retain staff in critical roles in the civil and public sector. The number of vacancies in the health sector, in particular, is impacting directly on vital public services. The row about the moratorium on health service recruitment vis-à-visthe tortured language being used by officialdom in the Department of Health to justify the failure to recruit posts that have been advertised or to give people contracts for posts that were advertised 12 months ago reveals that.

I asked the Taoiseach last year and again this year to report on the growing habit of inserting Ministers into financing decisions where they had previously been excluded by changes introduced after 1997. For example, with regard to community development, advance research and culture money has been directed into funds where the relevant Minister has been given a role in deciding not just policy but also specific allocations. No justification has been provided for this strategy of re-politicising funding. The documentation regarding the Government's self-marketing campaign revealed that at least one Minister was personally deciding on the allocation of advertising spending between different publishers, broadcasters and newspapers, something that had not occurred for at least two decades. Will the Taoiseach agree to ask for the development of guidelines on how to reverse this trend towards the growing politicisation of day-to-day government?

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