Dáil debates

Wednesday, 10 October 2012

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions

Public Sector Staff Issues

1:30 pm

Photo of Seán FlemingSeán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the date on which he intends to publish the cost benefit analysis and full details on the operation of the proposed voluntary redundancy scheme within the public service; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43504/12]

Photo of Mary Lou McDonaldMary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he will provide details of the public sector voluntary redundancy scheme recently announced; if he will identify the areas in the public sector from which these redundancies are to be targeted; the targeted net saving to the Exchequer; and the provisions that will be put in place to protect service provision for citizens. [43503/12]

Photo of Brendan HowlinBrendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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With the permission of the House, I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 and 5 together.

The Government is committed to reducing the size of the public service and to creating a leaner more efficient public service. At mid-2012, public service numbers were 292,000. This is 28,000 below the peak number of 320,000 reached in 2008 and is comparable to the 2005 staffing levels. Service levels have been largely maintained, and in fact increased in some areas, notwithstanding these considerable staff reductions due to increased productivity and workplace flexibility.

The Government has agreed to accelerate the programme of staff reductions in order to maximise pay-bill savings. Where staff surpluses are identified a targeted voluntary redundancy scheme would be made available for selected areas throughout the public service.

Identification of staff surpluses is under way. Following the agreement by Government of my proposals, my ministerial colleagues are actively examining particular work areas, bodies, locations and-or grades at which voluntary redundancy can be targeted because of changes to workplace configuration or service delivery models. Of course, there will be full regard for the skills needs and priorities of Departments now and in the future during this process. I stress that there will be no automatic right to redundancy and all applications will be subject to an ongoing business need. This will ensure that critical front line services will be maintained.

Final decisions on numbers reductions to be achieved in each sector will take account of the surpluses identified by Ministers and reported to me in respect of their portfolios and of expected rates of retirements in those sectors over the next few years. Of course, a full cost benefit analysis will be required as part of this assessment. When this assessment has been completed further details of this scheme will be made available by my Department.

This is the first time that there is flexibility. As I explained on many occasions in the House, we did not control the previous exit package because it was staff simply taking a choice for themselves to go before the reduced pay impacted on their pensions. This one will be to identify where there are genuine surpluses of staff where we can offer voluntary redundancies.

Photo of Seán FlemingSeán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister for at least coming into the House and giving us some information. As recently as lunchtime, I checked the Department's website for any statement on this from him and I could find no statement to date. The only record I can find anywhere is something that was published on RTE on 2 October and, obviously, somebody had a word in somebody's ear. There was no press release, there is no case made for it and there is cost-benefit analysis. It sounds as if the Minister will make it up as he goes along.

He might give us the timescale. He has stated that it will take a few years. One would have thought, the way this announcement came out, that it would happen quite soon. Is it now to be over a two-year or three-year period?

He might tell us who will present the business cases. There was the recent example of the business cases for allowances and they went nowhere. What will happen with the business cases here, who will present them and will they be accepted?

What kind of redundancy payments will be involved? I cannot find anything on the public record officially from the Department. Somebody stated it will be like the HSE package, that it could be three weeks per year of service plus two weeks statutory redundancy. If so, from the taxpayers' point of view, that would be an expensive redundancy package relative to the cost of the staff who took early retirement this year. The Minister might give us an indication of which would be the most beneficial from the point of view of the taxpayer - this or an early retirement scheme.

The one matter on which I agree with the Minister is that any new package needs to be targeted. The Minister stated that he would examine Departments to identify where there are surpluses. As part of that important exercise, he must also examine Departments to see where there are shortages. I need not tell him about the Department of Social Protection where applicants are waiting between nine and 12 months for appeals to be dealt with, cases to be examined, means tests to be carried out or medical examinations. There are shortages. Will the Minister take this into account and where he identifies surpluses, will he move them to known areas of shortages?

Photo of Brendan HowlinBrendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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I am taken by the Deputy's series of questions and his interest in having detail. He will find that everything we do will be spelled out in detail.

To be clear, there is no scheme at present. I indicated after a Government meeting, because we were asked what was discussed at Government which is a normal occurrence after such a meeting, that I had brought a proposal simply to request every line Minister to look, in the context of all of the agencies and Departments under their purview, to see if there are surplus staff. As Deputy Sean Fleming will be aware, we spoke about areas in the past where there were too many staff.

There are areas that are under pressure for staff and that is why the architecture of the Croke Park agreement in so important. Seamlessly and without fuss, we have moved thousands of staff across the public service under the Croke Park agreement. It is one of the unsung achievements of the Croke Park agreement. The funny aspect of it, as I have stated previously, is that if one achieves something - for example, getting the new deal on sick pay - without a row, it is taken as if it is nothing. If one achieves the same thing with a major row, it is regarded as a significant achievement.

I am awaiting reports from all my colleagues on the staff they think are surplus. A number of them have come back already and there will be significant numbers in some areas. We will conduct the analysis in a profile of a number of years to see how many would be leaving in any event. We do not want to have staff who will go in any event in a year or two to be a cost. To those who are appropriate, we will be applying HSE terms.

On the point the Deputy makes on social protection, no line Department has got more additional supports than Social Protection to meet the significant increase in appeals and applications because the volume, variety and complexity of social welfare payments is such that this support is needed. Part of the reform agenda my colleague, the Minister for Social Protection, is pursuing is to rationalise that so that there is not the complexity and multiplicity of allowances.

Photo of Mary Lou McDonaldMary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister for his response.

I assume that this new scheme is designed to reduce numbers in the public sector by 10,000 by 2014. That was the Minister's stated target. I am working on the assumption that this is the mechanism that he has identified for doing that, but he might confirm that for me when he responds.

The difficulty that my party has here is a fundamental one and it relates to the moratorium on recruitment and the embargo. The Minister states that he will ask line Ministers to identify surpluses of staff. I very much hope that when he has all of this detailed information he will publish all of it and the publishing will not be selective.

I would certainly like to know where are these areas of alleged staffing surpluses. We can very readily identify the places where there are staffing shortfalls but it would be interesting to see where, in the view of Government, there are surpluses.

I do not know how the Government can take a further 10,000 workers out of the system and still guarantee the protection of services. The Minister said service delivery has increased and improved but that is not the experience of the end-user of the services. That is the reality and any Member of the House who does any level of constituency work will vouch for that. Indeed, anybody who has taken the time to talk to people who are working in the public service will also know that.

1:40 pm

Photo of Michael KittMichael Kitt (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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I urge the Deputy to frame a question.

Photo of Mary Lou McDonaldMary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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Can the Minister assure us that all of the data, not a half-baked version of it, in respect of the so-called surpluses, the areas where there are staffing shortfalls and the full detail of any cost-benefit analysis will be published in full? On publication of that data, I ask the Minister to allow us the opportunity to debate and discuss it, rather than have him as Minister simply making an announcement to the general public. Could we have the courtesy at least of a full and detailed debate based on that detailed and comprehensive information in this Chamber?

Photo of Brendan HowlinBrendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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I will deal with the last point first in terms of engagement with the process. I had hoped that there would be full engagement with the real challenges that we face as a country and a people. That is why I published the medium-term fiscal horizons for every Department over three years, so that people would know what is required in terms of reductions in expenditure. I also published all of the documentation relating to the comprehensive review of expenditure so all of the policy options that were submitted would be known. I was not overwhelmed by the analysis done by the Deputies opposite in terms of the options that should be taken, but so be it. That is fine. The Government will have to make decisions on the path to recovery.

Regarding the first question the Deputy asked about numbers, she is correct that, as of this minute, there are approximately 292,000 public servants, which is a reduction of 28,000 on peak. The target we have set for 2014 is 282,500, which means a reduction of in or around 10,000. Obviously, natural retirements will remove a good number of people from the service but our estimate is that this will not be sufficient. That is why we are introducing a targeted redundancy package, to supplement the natural retirements, as well as those leaving the service for other reasons.

In terms of the general thrust, we are delivering public services differently. That is what the whole reform agenda is about. Different skills mixes, different working arrangements, different rostering and so forth, are enabling us to achieve more with less. That is what everybody is trying to do in this economy to make it more efficient. The public service has responded extraordinarily well to that real challenge.

Photo of Seán FlemingSeán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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I wish to put on record that we discussed this targeted redundancy package in this House last June or July, before the summer recess. Some people were surprised by the announcement but if they had been listening to us in the Chamber they would not have been surprised. The matter was discussed here and flagged months ago.

I ask the Minister to confirm that this will be a Government decision rather than something negotiated under the Croke Park agreement. That agreement does not deal with reductions in numbers. That is a Government decision, like the early retirement package of last February. Such matters are Government budgetary decisions and the Croke Park agreement helps to manage the process but does not set the agenda for the numbers.

Photo of Brendan HowlinBrendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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That is correct.

Photo of Seán FlemingSeán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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In terms of what is on offer and the offer itself, will that be a direct Government decision or will it be taken in consultation with the public sector committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions? Will the redundancy scheme be like the early retirement scheme, namely, a Government announcement to be managed afterwards?

Photo of Mary Lou McDonaldMary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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One gets to a point with this theory of more with less where one runs out of rope eventually. The Minister is clearly minded to shed 10,000 more public servants. I ask him again to give an absolute commitment that the full details will be provided. I am labouring this point because when information was published in respect of, for instance, premium pay and allowances, it was not in any way robust or as comprehensive as one would require in order to be able to have an informed discussion on the topic. I really hope that when the Minister is planning to take such drastic action as to shed 10,000 more jobs in a climate of very high unemployment and when services are stretched to capacity, that at a minimum the Government that proclaims transparency will put up all of the information, including those areas where the Minister finds that, far from a surplus, there is a significant shortfall in numbers.

Photo of Brendan HowlinBrendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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In response to Deputy Fleming's question, it is indeed a matter for Government and not a matter for negotiations. We have set the targets and we are accelerating those targets. We have reduced public service numbers to 2005 levels and it cannot be argued that we had a desperately understaffed public service back then. We need to look at all of the new technologies that are available. More than 300 services are being delivered online now. If the Deputies wanted to buy an airline ticket, they would not go to a staffed travel agency to do so as they might have done 20 years ago. We must be modern in the way we deliver our services because the people who are paying their taxes expect that of us.

In response to Deputy McDonald, we will be as transparent on this as we can be. I am sure I am not going to be able to satisfy Deputy McDonald in all of this because she does not want us to embark on this scheme at all. That is fine and she is entitled to her point of view. However, we can transform the way we deliver services. Tomorrow I am appearing before the Committee of Public Accounts and shortly after the finance committee to go through in detail the public service reform agenda and outline what we have achieved to date in a short period of time. It is less than a year since that agenda was published and we are bringing about a quiet revolution. I know there is screaming and shouting about parts of it but the general change that is happening is one that we will all be proud of when we are finished.