Michael Finucane (Fine Gael)

With the permission of the Chair, I would like to read into the record a fairly self-explanatory letter. I do not need to add anything to the letter, which was given the title "Exposing Civil Service from within" when it was chosen as the letter of the week in the Sunday Independent last Sunday. The letter read as follows:

I am a senior civil servant working in one of the biggest government departments. I have received a significant increase in salary under the guise of benchmarking. I can, however, confirm that the process constitutes a major fraud on the taxpayer. The notion that there will be, or has been, some improvement in productivity or in delivery or quality of services or performance accruing for the State is totally erroneous. My department is overstaffed, there is no check or interest in under-performance (or no performance) on either an individual or collective basis – whatever the grade from Clerical Officer to Assistant Secretary. If I, within my area, were to take some initiative to address the situation I would receive no support and would in fact harm any chance of advancement – I know this through personal experience. There is in place a culture of hear no evil . etc., and this is widely tacitly understood across most of the Civil Service. Those commentators who have identified and commented on the obvious flaws in the process have only erred in seriously underestimating the scale of the con-job being perpetrated on the taxpayer. Finally, I should add that the blame for the above lies squarely with the absence of real management skills at the highest levels of the Civil Service. The doctrine is if in doubt do nothing – and most important of all upset nobody.

I did not make up the letter, which was written by a civil servant. I do not need to say any more than that.