Dáil debates

Wednesday, 22 January 2014

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions

Government Pay Policy

9:30 am

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

1. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the actions he is taking to ensure that all top-up payments over and above taxpayer funded salaries paid by agencies contracted by the State are ceased; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2776/14]

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

I ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the actions he is taking to ensure all top-up payments over and above taxpayer funded salaries paid by agencies contracted by the State are ceased. The Minister will be aware that ten months ago the HSE produced a report on 44 organisations, which his Department received last July. To date, only eight of the 44 organisations are compliant with public sector pay guidelines. What has the Minister been doing for the past ten months?

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

Government pay policy is clear that remuneration rates for public servants must be appropriately approved and sanctioned in advance of payment. Pay policy is underpinned by administrative and legislative requirements. In the majority of cases remuneration rates for public servants must be approved by the relevant line Minister, subject to my consent as Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform. It is a matter for each Accounting Officer to ensure only those remuneration rates which are appropriately sanctioned and approved are in payment in Departments and agencies under their aegis.

In regard to the recent revelations on additional unsanctioned payments being made in the health sector, to which the Deputy referred, my Department has supported the work of the Department of Health and the HSE, as well as the work of my Oireachtas colleagues on the Committee of Public Accounts, in addressing the payment of unsanctioned amounts in the section 38, Health Act, agencies and will continue to do so, as appropriate. While my Department creates the policy on payments and sanctions the salary rates within the health sector, it cannot monitor implementation or audit compliance. It is properly a matter in the first instance for the Department of Health and HSE to ensure Government policy on pay is being complied with.

I am aware also that the Deputy has a particular interest in two agencies under the auspices of my Department - the Economic and Social Research Institute and the Institute of Public Administration - about which he asked me last week and which are in receipt of additional non-Exchequer income. These bodies have confirmed that no additional top-up payments are being paid to employees in these organisations.

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

I thank the Minister for his short reply. Essentially, he has passed the buck. Everybody is responsible and nobody is responsible at the same time is the response of his Department. He has said he sets a policy but that it is not up to him to implement it. There is no point in having a policy if there is no mechanism in place to implement it. It is just words on paper if it is not implemented.

As the Minister knows, the internal HSE audit report on the 44 organisations was published in March last year and went to his Department over the summer, but he did nothing about it until the matter came up at the Committee of Public Accounts. His Department was aware of it. The Minister should have been making the line Department deal with the issue. That is his function. It is not his job to involve himself in the 44 organisations, but it is certainly his job to make the Department of Health do so. That Department has not got to the bottom of this issue.

This is not just a matter for the HSE in that we have seen top-up payments and salaries exceeding pay policy in third level institutes and in various other bodies.

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

This is the first Government to establish a clear pay policy which is undoing the ad hoc policies of previous Administrations over decades, Administrations which did not know or certainly did not care who was paying what to whom. That is now being rectified, but it cannot be done overnight. My Department which is new is responsible for setting the pay norms. However, there are 30,000 public servants and there is a variety of line Departments with their own Accounting Officers who are statutorily and constitutionally charged with doing this job. Unless the Deputy wants all of them to be set down and my Department to run every aspect of the public service and every agency of the State, we will have to do this in the systematic way we have set out.

The Deputy is quite wrong in his assertion that everybody is responsible and nobody is responsible at the same time. We are getting to the bottom of this issue. The lines of responsibility are clear in unveiling it. The HSE and the Department of Health are pursuing the matter actively with my full support. Of course, there is a role for the committees of this House and the Committee of Public Accounts which is doing a good job in ensuring public pay policy is implemented.

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

Every Member of the House agrees that there should not be top-up payments. The policy is not being implemented and it will be a very difficult process to get to the bottom of this issue in every line Department. I know it is not the Minister's job to micro-manage Departments, but it is his job to ensure their Accounting Officers are doing theirs.

The Minister has said that in the past people did not know or care. A week ago at a meeting on the Estimates I asked him about possible top-up payments in the Institute of Public Administration and the Economic and Social Research Institute. I never suggested there were; I just wanted confirmation. However, the Minister did not know or care and could not answer the question. It has taken him eight days to answer it. He did not know or care about his own line Department until I put the question to him last week.

Does the Minister agree that we need legislation to deal with this matter to put it to bed once and for all?

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

We have an array of legislation dealing with these matters. What we need is full transparency and that is what we are trying to achieve. A particular issue has arisen in regard to the section 38 and 39 agencies under the Health Act. There was an opaqueness in the degree of oversight and transparency with which these agencies which were independent but contracted to the HSE to provide services operated, but that day is over. We need to know exactly on what they are spending the money and what people are being paid in order that we can evaluate whether value for money is being achieved for the State. That process is well in train.