Results 14,341-14,360 of 29,533 for speaker:Brendan Howlin

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Service Reform Plan: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (22 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: -----for private health care. The general issue of high pay is something I addressed from the outset. Ministers now earn on average 25% less than Ministers in the previous regime with the Taoiseach earning 30% less. The most senior civil servants earn 30% less than those who went before. This is an ongoing issue that we continue to review to ensure that in everything we do-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Service Reform Plan: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (22 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: ----- it is done in a fair way. I will not be part of the destruction of public services because some people feel there is short-term popularity in advocating a course of action that at its heart they know is hugely destructive of maintaining a quality public service.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Service Reform Plan: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (22 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: They represent the biggest cohort.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Service Reform Plan: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (22 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: May I answer that question?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Service Reform Plan: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (22 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: There were four questions. First, with regard to the assertion that public servants in my Department and elsewhere are grossly overpaid, I told the committee that one of the people we recruited recently - I will not embarrass him by mentioning his name - is paid half of what he earned in the private sector. We need to get people of the highest calibre. There is populism in saying that...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Service Reform Plan: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (22 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: I am anxious to have quality public services, and there is a balance to be struck. Wages in the public sector and in the private economy went completely out of sync. We have worked hard to deal with that. My general view, and it used to be the general view of the left, is that one must deal with high pay and social solidarity through a comprehensive tax system. One does not pick out...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Service Reform Plan: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (22 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: One does not pick out individuals because it suits. I have seen the Deputy do that previously. She picks out individuals and excoriates them, as if they are somehow pariahs simply because they have a certain wage rate. We do this through proper taxation. Whether one's income is from the private sphere, shareholdings or the public purse, income should be regarded in the same way. We deal...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Service Reform Plan: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (22 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: I drilled down into them and went on national radio. People were saying a boot allowance was disgraceful. People were in high dudgeon over a few euro per year. However, we must have clarity and convey it to the public. A good job has been done by the Committee of Public Accounts in that regard. The Deputy wondered if I am worthy of my job. I have been elected by Dáil Éireann...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Service Reform Plan: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (22 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: The Deputy makes a very fair point. I am very conscious of this and not only with regard to the Garda, where physical ability is part of the job. Obviously one wishes to have a balance between younger and more senior members in that regard. We also looked at this in terms of the Army. Even in the Civil Service and so forth there must be an intake. I am very mindful of that and, within...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Service Reform Plan: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (22 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: Yes. Such recruitment is in the programme for Government. There is some debate about it and I would be interested to hear the Deputy's view. My view is that Secretary General level is too high a grade, because it means coming in without knowing the structure. Principal officer level is probably the best grade at which to come into the service, although we have recruited a very capable...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Service Reform Plan: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (22 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: With the permission of the Chairman, I ask Mr. Paul Reid, as someone who came from the private sector and has been on a contract for just over a year in the public sector, to make a comment.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Service Reform Plan: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (22 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: Deputy Donnelly managed three questions. Well done.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Service Reform Plan: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (22 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: In terms of overall expenditure, it would be difficult to construct that because, once we allocate expenditure, my Department in conjunction with the Department of Finance examines the umbrella of expenditure. The actual disposition of it falls to a line Minister, which is why we have line Ministers accountable to individual committees. It would be difficult to see how that could be...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Service Reform Plan: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (22 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: I do not think I would ever take a scrumdown with Deputy Michael Noonan. I would lose. We meet very regularly and our offices are in the same building. We discuss all economic policy several times every week. The architecture of the economic management council, about which there has been some talk, is extraordinarily useful. It means there is a coherent debate among four senior...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Service Reform Plan: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (22 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: Papers are being prepared for it all the time in terms of what is happening with ECOFIN and the banking situation so that we can politically analyse it. One of the shocking deficiencies I found was during negotiations for the programme for Government, when Fine Gael and the Labour Party were briefed separately by the main institutions of the State on the finance side. This included the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Service Reform Plan: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (22 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: Deputy Mathews made a good point about accountants. I was talking to a young official in my Department who had come back from discussions with a line Department, which I will not mention, highly chuffed because he had been accused of being a bean counter and he regarded that as high praise. We need people who can do the sums and say this is what we can and cannot live with and that it is...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Service Reform Plan: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (22 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: We need that. The Deputy is absolutely right. I will not go into the Army Reserve issue because that is a matter for the Minister for Defence but I take the Deputy's point on community activity and keeping people activated. Unemployment generally is the number one priority and youth unemployment is a sub-set of that and it is a major issue for us to deal with. I refer to the external...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Service Reform Plan: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (22 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: I agree with the Deputy. I keep editing things because I have to say - I hope I am not being critical of any official-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Service Reform Plan: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (22 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: In terms of language, the Deputy makes a point on it. In regard to the point made by Deputy Donnelly, the more people who come in from the private sphere - I hope this is not taken as a criticism of anybody here - the more private sphere jargon appears in scripts and language, which is interesting. If one goes to an IBEC meeting or any business meeting, an idiom is spoken at them which is...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Service Reform Plan: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (22 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: We have only invited them in. Basically, I have done the analysis of what we need to do to fill the hole. Over a period of time, I certainly indicated that there was a gap to be filled and that I was looking at the public pay area as making a contribution to that, but I got formal Government approval on Tuesday to invite the public sector unions in to shape out an agenda of negotiations to...