Results 15,181-15,200 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: 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: 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: We have had this discussion a thousand times with the Deputy. There are cases where a salary of that level is justified. It would be very hard to have consultants of the highest calibre in the hospital system. We are attracting people from the Mayo Clinic or the best hospitals in the United States or Canada who are earning multiples of that. If we were to restrict pay to that level, what...

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 finish my answer?

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: Unless we want to migrate to a system similar to what exists in parts of America with a private health system that people must buy into with limited access for the general public, I do not believe that system would work. That is my judgment on it.

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 are the biggest cohort of people who earn more than €100,000.

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 frame my answers as I choose. I have said repeatedly that the biggest cohort of people who earn €100,000 are hospital consultants. I am not minded to destroy the public health system and privatise it as would be implied by the Deputy's 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: No, it is not the answer. As the Deputy knows-----

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: Through the Chair-----

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 the third time I will say this. There are people in the public service who earn more than €100,000 and who should earn more than €100,000 if we are to maintain a decent health system that is available to the public. I have said this repeatedly to the Deputy and she knows it but wants to shy away from it. The implication of doping what she wants to do is privatise health...

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.