John Gerard Hanafin (Fianna Fail)

When discussing this Bill, it would be no harm to remind ourselves of the highest standards that prevail within the Civil Service. We must give credit to those civil servants for the great growth in our economy and the developments that have taken place here. The Civil Service has played a major role in ensuring that Ireland has become a fairer, more equitable and better place in which to live. It is important to introduce Bills that bring the current best practice up to date. The highest standards in the country prevail among the civil servants who work in this House. I cannot imagine that a better standard exists in other parliaments.

When the then Minister for Finance, Mr. McCreevy, published the Civil Service Regulation (Amendment) Bill 2004, he described it as a further significant step in the reform and modernisation of the Civil Service. He stated that the Bill was the third recent initiative, following the introduction of the Civil Service code of standards and behaviour and further reforms in the area of public service pensions. These initiatives all serve to modernise the Civil Service. The Bill, which will amend the Civil Service Regulation Act 1956, will facilitate a more flexible management structure, in which decisions relating to staff are taken at the appropriate administrative level in a modern civil service. As a consequence, heads of Departments and offices will have the management powers, including the power to dismiss staff below principal officer level, as originally envisaged in the Public Service Management Act 1997.

The Bill is a delivery of a commitment made in paragraph 22.6 of Sustaining Progress. The Civil Service unions, which agreed to the Bill during the benchmarking discussions, will be consulted about the detailed implementation of its provisions. The Bill's main provisions are as follows: Officers at and above principal officer level may be dismissed by the Minister in charge of the Department or scheduled office on the written recommendation of the Secretary General of the Department or the head of the scheduled office. Civil servants, as office holders other than those who fail to be dismissed by the Government, such as Secretaries General, will have access to the Unfair Dismissals Act 1997, which is being provided in order to assure civil servants that fair procedure will be observed and to provide a means of redress if they are dismissed unfairly. The sanctions of reduction in pay, reduction in rank and suspension without pay will be available to managers of those who underperform after attempts have failed to address the problem through training or coaching. Superannuation benefits accrued before a reduction in salary or rank will be protected. The present range of disciplinary sanctions will be broadened to include suspension without pay and hardship payments made to civil servants who are suspended without pay may be varied or halted.

Established civil servants may be engaged in temporary or fixed term contracts of employment, so that managers will have the flexibility to hire people for a finite term project. People aged over 65 years of age may be engaged as new entrants so that management will have the flexibility to engage people regardless of their age. I welcome this in light of the current debate in the Department of Social and Family Affairs and I commend the Minister, Deputy Brennan, on his work in this regard. I welcome the transfer of responsibility for local State solicitors from the Attorney General to the Director of Public Prosecutions, as well as the delegation of functions from the DPP to the local State solicitors. This Bill is timely and necessary.