Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I am seeking the publication of the third implementation report on the Croke Park agreement showing the savings made in public sector pay and non-pay areas in the period to 31 December 2012, that is, last year's report. In referring to the third implementation report I hope it was clear that I was referring to the original Croke Park agreement and the report for last year.

The Croke Park agreement took effect in March 2010 and, according to most people, was due to run until 2013. However, there was a Government decision during the course of this year to renegotiate and move on because the Minister wished to achieve additional savings which he said were not achievable under the first Croke Park agreement. That is his prerogative. However, the starting point for any discussion is a review of the current position. It is now May 2013, but we have not yet seen the report for last year. If I was on any side of the negotiations, I would have asked to be shown the starting point, which should be the review of the current agreement up to the most recent review date. There was a report on the position in the period to March 2011 and a report covering the period from April to December 2011 which was published in mid-March last year. On that basis, there should have been a report covering 2012 published in mid-March this year.

The Minister will offer excuses such as staff being busy, having other things to do and dealing with Croke Park II. However, it would have been much more helpful entering the negotiations in the past two months if last year's report had been available in order that the public sector trade unions, the Minister and the public could have seen the starting point. The Minister has stated the savings he wishes to achieve cannot be achieved under the existing agreement, but that is his opinion. Nobody else can stand over that statement unless he or she sees the outcome of last year's report.

There have been two progress reports so far under the existing agreement. The first implementation report concluded there had been pay savings of €290 million and non-pay savings of approximately €300 million, a total of almost €600 million. The second report, covering the period to the end of 2011, reported pay savings of €650 million and annualised non-pay savings of approximately €400 million, a total of over €1 billion achieved under the first Croke Park agreement. Were savings of €1 billion in pay and non-pay costs achieved in the last year? If so, people should know about it. We have not seen the savings achieved by the big event held on 28 February last year, when approximately 9,000 people left the public service under the early retirement scheme. It is important, in the interests of openness and transparency, that we see the results for last year.

This is linked with the issue of the Minister being slow to publish information. Various letters of clarification were issued in the failed negotiations, but they were not made public. In addition, the Estimates were published and have been discussed last week and this week. I have just returned from the discussion on the Estimates for the Department of the Taoiseach which include the rejected Croke Park II figures.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Did the Deputy participate?

Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I made my point once, which was enough. It was a very productive discussion and we will do it again. The point is that the Minister was not able to give us a breakdown of the Croke Park II savings across all 15 Departments; therefore, we do not know where we stand with regard to what he is seeking. The report for last year should be published immediately.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Deputies will be aware that an implementation body was established in 2010 to oversee implementation of the provisions of the Croke Park or public service agreement. The body is independently chaired by Mr. P. J. Fitzpatrick and comprises representatives of all the parties to the agreement, the public service trade unions and public service management. The body is supported in its work by a small secretariat based in my Department.

Under paragraph 1.16 of the agreement, the body is required to assess the savings being facilitated under the framework of the agreement on an annual basis. As part of the annual review process, savings returned are completed and submitted to the body in respect of every sector, Department and office. The body undertakes an assessment of savings and progress achieved during the period under review and publishes an annual report on foot of that examination. Two such reports have been published to date and a third, covering the period to 31 December 2012, is awaited. This is the report to which the Deputy refers.

The two annual progress reports published to date show that the agreement has facilitated significant savings and reform in a climate of industrial peace. For example, approximately €1.5 billion in savings has been facilitated by the agreement in the first two years, comprising, as Deputy Fleming rightly said, €810 million and €678 million in sustainable pay bill and non-pay efficiency savings, respectively.

Pay savings have been driven primarily by the reduction in staff numbers over the course of the agreement, but there are also other factors, such as the reduction in overtime costs and pay bill savings accruing from changed work practices, rationalisation, etc. Non-pay savings have been achieved through the better use of resources, reorganising work and achieving greater internal efficiencies.

In addition to outlining savings, the reports of the body also show that wide-ranging reform has been delivered across the sectors of the public service. This includes extensive redeployment and reassignment of staff, for example in the health and education sectors, thereby helping to mitigate the impact of a reduction in staff numbers of almost 30,000 since the peak of 2008; progress on rationalising structures and office requirements, for example, in the local office network of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Revenue local offices, court venues and Teagasc offices; the introduction of revised rosters, for example in An Garda Síochána and some health service locations, to better match resources with demand. Progress on standardising terms and conditions in the public service, for example in annual sick leave arrangements, has been made and facilitated. Facilitation of the efficiency review process in the Prison Service, which led to the introduction of a lower-cost staffing model in prisons, has been achieved. The implementation of 2 million additional working hours on an annual basis in the education sector, eliminating the need for school closures for parent–teacher meetings, planning, etc., has been achieved. The implementation of significant restructuring and new modes of service delivery in local government has been achieved in order to manage the significant reduction in staff in that sector. Approximately 8,500 members of staff have left the local government sector since the peak of 2008.

The agreement has been a key enabler for the implementation of the Government's comprehensive public service reform plan. Earlier this year, the implementation body commenced its third annual review of the agreement, which deals with the period up to 31 December 2012. Deputies, particularly Deputy Fleming, will appreciate that there have been a difficult and demanding few months for all the parties to the agreement, with the focus on discussions aimed at securing agreement on measures to deliver an additional €1 billion in pay savings over and above those achieved under Croke Park 1 by 2015. Nonetheless, I understand that the body is now in the process of finalising its report because I have checked on foot of the Deputy’s request. I expect to receive it in the coming weeks. Following its submission to the Government, it will be published on the body's website in the normal way.

Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

It is precisely because of the information that the Minister just gave me that I submitted this matter for debate. As Opposition spokesperson, I wrote directly to the chairman a week or two ago to ascertain the status of the report. He said it would be prepared for the Minister over the coming weeks and that it would be sent to him and published by the Government in due course.

The Minister’s statement does not address the fact that the report was out months earlier last year. We are now two months behind last year's schedule. This does not represent public sector reform. The report should be produced more promptly. I acknowledge that the Minister said that it is a small secretariat in his Department that is working on putting together last year's report, and that similar staff are probably working on the Croke Park agreement, but it would have been more helpful if everybody had known last year's position when starting the talks considering that they are working on figures from 2011.

What the Minister read represents outstanding progress and success under the Croke Park 1 agreement. He was not a fan of the agreement, became a fan of it and is now saying he cannot achieve it. However, it achieved a saving of €1.5 billion before last year's savings came into account, which I am sure may amount to at least another €1 billion. Croke Park 1 did achieve success. Therefore, why has the Minister put us in a position in which we almost have no agreement at present? Can anything be done? It is no good producing last year's figures after some new agreement is in place. People are entitled to know where they stood last year before making an arrangement for this year.

I have advice for the Minister in his discussion with the Labour Relations Commission. A stumbling block the Minister faced in getting Croke Park 2 over the line was that, in some cases, cuts were based on the make-up of pay and not people's actual pay. He said core pay was not being cut, yet people earning under €65,000 were subject to pay cuts. It may not have been in respect of core pay, but pay is pay and money in one’s bank account at the end of the month. Trying to tell the public that there are no core pay cuts for anybody earning under €65,000 when they were actually receiving pay cuts was a major bone of contention. The Minister may call the cuts whatever he likes and refer to premium allowances but the cuts were, in effect, pay cuts and this led to considerable difficulty during the last round of discussions. I hope this will be taken into account in the coming days.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Deputy has rightly acknowledged that we have a very small group of people who are working in support of the implementation body to produce these reports. They certainly have been fully occupied in the negotiations on an extension of the Croke Park agreement. The Deputy has understood the point well that the objective I set out to achieve on behalf of the Government in last year's budget was an additional contribution from the public sector pay bill in order to meet our fiscal targets and reduce the deficit below 3% by 2015. That was completely accepted by the Deputy and his party. In fact, his party wanted €350 million in additional payroll savings to be achieved this year on top of the figure pertaining Croke Park 1. That was a fair enough presentation to us.

I am and remain a big fan of Croke Park 1. I have never said anything else. I spent two years defending it, often in a very lonely position when every Sunday newspaper attacked the public service and public servants for being featherbedded. Unfortunately, the inescapable fact that I presented to the trade union movement at the end of last year was that in order to achieve the deficit targets we are obliged to achieve under the programme of funding, I needed to ask for a further contribution from public servants. It was a question of doing so in as fair a way as I possibly could. We can all have different views on the individual component parts, and the Deputy has strong views on premium pay, but I believe the set of recommendations was objectively fair. Objectively, they have been rejected, however. We must ascertain between now and next week how the Labour Relations Commission gets on in its talks. There are a number of talks proceeding as we speak. Next Monday, I expect to receive a report. Once I have reported to the Government on Tuesday, I have no doubt we will have an opportunity to determine, by agreement in the House, how to achieve the payroll savings that are necessary to meet our very challenging deficit targets.