Joe O'Toole (Independent)

Exactly. However, decentralisation cannot in any principled way be opposed with a safe intellectual argument. I agree with Senator McDowell that the issue is how it is to be implemented and I agree with his use of the word "voluntary". I stated in the House that decentralisation would be a great idea if the timescale of three years was replaced by one of ten years, and if this was made clear.

It cannot be done in three years. There will be a significant impact on the lives of public servants, as outlined by Senator McDowell. Families, careers and life expectations cannot be broken up just by saying that in three years all arrangements will be atomised. However, some things can be done. Locations can be chosen and a presence established, and there can be an insistence that all future recruitment be to a particular location. Staff can be invited to change and, after that, as with the Act of Union, a little mealladh, breabadh agus bagairt could be used to ensure they are edged in a particular direction.

It can be done but, at this stage, it seems like a good idea which is likely to go wrong. While most unions have been very restrained in their response, they have now been pushed into a position of opposition for the reasons which people heard on the doorsteps during the local election campaign in Dublin. Who can argue against the fears of ordinary people? The Government should consider a different timeline.

Senator Mansergh referred to IT and how it relates to the Bill and decentralisation. I regularly read the Sunday newspapers and noticed a significant advertisement in a newspaper last Sunday week regarding jobs in the public service. It advised readers to look at the www.publicjobs.ie website. Being the sad type that I am, and not having anything else to do on a Sunday evening, I tried to enter the website only to be told it was inaccessible. I tried again the following day but could not enter the site. As those who look after such websites are generally paid a lot of money, particularly if they do so for a Department, it was my intention to contact those in charge of the website. However, I forgot about it until I noticed a large colour advertisement in last Sunday's newspapers, advising readers to check www.publicjobs.ie. I thought I would get the up-to-date version but, again, could not access the site despite trying several times. Action should be taken on this. Senator Mansergh made the case for flexibility in regard to the public service, as do I. However, this type of problem gives the public service a bad name. This morning, I again tried to access the website, which the Minister is paying for on our behalf, but could not get into it. I tried several different methods to access the site — on an AppleMac, a PC and with Internet Explorer — but could not do so. The Minister should confirm to the House that somebody does not get paid for this. The State paid for advertisements on consecutive Sundays which asked people to deal with an inaccessible website. Who is being paid for this? It is the type of situation which creates concerns regarding trust and confidence. How did it happen that nobody has checked this? It suggests that nobody is counting the hits on the website or the reaction to it.

The Minister of State said "a modern and flexible recruitment system" was important. I agree with his comments about the commissioners. I recently looked at some of the application forms, and I look forward to the added flexibility that will result from these proposed changes. I would like the Minister of State to confirm in his response that in all applications some space will be provided in which the applicant may sell himself for a public service job. People should not be restricted to the spaces provided in a designed application form, although the application form itself is a good idea.

In recent times I have been concerned about recruitment, which is a crucial aspect of management. One of the great problems with senior management in this country at present is that because most managers are not involved in recruitment or appointing people to positions, they are losing the skills required. They depend too much on recruitment agencies. In view of this I welcome the provision in the Bill for different groups within the public service to carry out their own recruitment. That is very important. However, as Senator McDowell said, there could be too many layers. We need to have trust and confidence in the system — there should not be any opportunity for people to interfere with it and upset the applecart. It is also important that we involve people in the appointments system.

Recently, much time has been taken up with the TELAC system of appointments. Assistant secretaries and Secretaries General have often been tied up for a week while they deal with appointments. I do not know whether there is any way around that, but I am not sure it is the best use of time. How is this regulated?

The question of a talent drain in the public service was mentioned. The number of people from the Department of Finance who find positions in financial institutions and related areas is not worrying in itself — it is a reflection of the talent within the public service and gives the lie to those who say otherwise. The problem is that it is a one-way street. There should be a way for people to come in as well as leave. That is one of the themes that emerged from Sustaining Progress. We should all be prepared to consider this.

This raises the issue of pension portability. Flexibility is important. I have been involved in a number of appointments in recent years and I have found the Department of Finance to be very inflexible when it comes to allowing people into the system from outside and particularly when it comes to the issue of pensions and so on. That is a difficulty. Many quangos and State-instituted bodies need people of the best quality who have experience in the private sector. I refer here to specific cases, not the general issue, which also needs to be addressed. It is important that people with expertise may be taken into the public sector and given contracts for a number of years with terms as attractive as those to be found in the private sector. There is a view in the Department of Finance that if a person is recruited into the civil or public service for a number of years he should not be offered the pension arrangements and security provisions that apply to those who are already within the system, including Members of the Houses of the Oireachtas.

We need to consider the issue of flexibility. When I hear about flexibility, I always remember the introduction of multi-annual budgeting by the Department of Finance. It was great until the Department itself had to apply it, when it suddenly became impossible. Somebody asked what was to be done with the money left over at the end of each year and the Department said it must be sent back, although it was still required that budgeting be done on a multi-annual basis. This is a similar problem. The Department of Finance is inclined to impose flexibility on everyone else without loosening its own straitjacket, despite the fact that some of the most talented people in the Civil Service are in that Department. Perhaps that is why they are where they are. This is not an ad hominem argument. I am simply pointing out that there is a culture that must be changed. It has been pointed out previously that the Department was not too keen to decentralise itself.

Senator McDowell might be interested to know that while in a provincial town recently, I met a senior person attached to a Department who admitted, after we had had libations and were speaking freely, that he was inspecting possible locations for the 75 jobs that were being decentralised to that town. All the talk was about how nobody would move and how it would be impossible to persuade anyone to live in these godforsaken places in rural Ireland, to use Senator McDowell's phrase. I asked what he thought of the town and he said he was very pleased and liked the locations he had seen around the town. I said that was a good start and asked him, off the record, how many applications he had received for the 75 positions. I will not mention the name of the official. He said there had been 220 top quality applications. There are people who will choose to turn their backs on Dublin, although that is an impossible thought to comprehend.