Brian Hayes (Fine Gael)

I warmly welcome the Minister of State to the House. I congratulate him on being the first official substitute in the Department of the Taoiseach.

My initial reaction to the latter part of his contribution is that we need to be careful not to overegg the partnership process. It has been a success but, as Brendan Behan said, we are all very popular, popular among ourselves. The notion that the driving force behind our success over the past 20 years has its genesis in the partnership process is wide of the mark. The Bill was published in 2002 and it was introduced in the Lower House in 2003 but it has taken three years to get to this House. It does not augur well for the Government's strategic drive that a Bill published four years ago is only coming before the House now. If we are serious about reforming the way both Houses do their business, the expeditious passage of legislation should be ensured once it is promised and published. This legislation was promised under a partnership agreement a number of years ago.

The Minister of State alluded to a problem in this process. The centralised control of the process is exercised by the Taoiseach's office and not the Houses of the Oireachtas. Sections 14, 15 and 16 provide that all the council's members shall be appointed by the Taoiseach. Under section 24, the Taoiseach is given the absolute right to remove the members, while section 26 provides that all new bodies established under section 7 require the consent of the Taoiseach. Section 33 refers to the preparation of a plan that must be forwarded to the Taoiseach's office, while section 34 provides for a report to the Taoiseach of the end of year financial results. Section 35 gives the Taoiseach the right to dissolve the council in its entirety. We are putting into law a highly centralised process under the absolute control of the Taoiseach.

Significant questions are raised privately by both Government and Opposition Members when I converse with them about the way in which this process is completely devoid of oversight by the Houses of the Oireachtas and resides within the Department of the Taoiseach, to the exclusion of virtually all politicians. They say what we have witnessed in recent years is a dumbing down of Parliament and the control of Parliament by the partnership process. The Bill will not change that because it puts the office that contains the three divisions overseeing the partnership process on a statutory footing.

The entire process is top heavy and it is largely irrelevant to the vast majority of workers. Approximately 70% of workers are not represented at the negotiating table because they are not in unionised labour, while the vast majority of small and medium-sized business are also not represented. Partnership involves a deal between the public sector unions and the Government. I fully understand why the Government and Governments, of which my party was a member, want that to happen but it should not be overegged. The process should not be described as something it is not and we should not overdramatise its effect on the economy since the mid-1980s.

My party has made many comments on the benchmarking process in recent years. When the issue was first raised, we sought accountability regarding the determination of the awards and we also wanted greater flexibility in the establishment of the awards. The new benchmarking formula is better than the original and the proof of the pudding will emerge in the next few weeks. Many people in the private sector are agog at the way in which increases can be given to the staff of an entire Department, irrespective of their performance.

If we are serious about benchmarking going forward, a more flexible process must be established, based on delivering results in the public service, in which significant funding and staff resources have been invested in recent years. The increase is justifiable for many, but not for all, and it must be based on a new system. I hope the new process will deliver a better result for public service consumers but it should be recognised it is too often based on vested interests, including public sector unions, and the people at the trough to the exclusion of the 70% of workers who are not unionised and who are not represented at the negotiating table. They have experienced a significant reduction in their take home pay compared with public sector staff and that issue needs to be addressed.

I was astonished by the Taoiseach's comments last September when he was doorstepped entering Dublin Castle for the first phase of talks on the new partnership deal. He said his ambition in the new round was to concentrate on health and education issues. He was right but why should these issues be raised during these talks? They are matters for the Houses of the Oireachtas. If the Government's view is that health and education funding is not sufficient, Ministers should say that in Parliament, not in Dublin Castle. Much of the baloney and verbiage that is part and parcel of the process must be unravelled. The idea that the Taoiseach needs the approval of the social partners to increase funding in health and education is anathema to the notion of a representative parliament and representative democracy.

Part of the success of this country is due to former Deputy Ray MacSharry when, as Minister for Finance in the late 1980s, he decided to curtail much of the expenditure we could not afford. He was supported in that decision by former Deputy Alan Dukes, then leader of my party, in the Tallaght strategy.

Between 1987 and 1989, we managed collectively to turn the economy around by dealing with the gross overexpenditure on the current side. That was a radical thing to do and a new departure in politics, where a national consensus was reached among the two biggest parties in the country.

However, references are rarely made to this and we often hear verbiage that the partnership process was the catalyst for the economy. That is not the case and anyone who believes it needs to look at the facts. A partnership process is essential in difficult times, when we have high levels of unemployment and when the public finances are not as healthy as they are now. However, there may be a case for bilateral agreements between workers and their employers to ensure those workers get a better deal. The notion that a blanket increase across industry leads to a better situation for all workers may have to be questioned.

There is a mania for establishing quangos that started in the early 1990s and for which I do not necessarily blame Fianna Fáil. It started with partnerships, bodies and unelected, unaccountable people in well-paid positions who produce endless reports that nobody reads. This mania affects all Governments, including my own Government. In 1992-93, an obsession developed whereby new boards were established all over the country. However, we are cementing this in legislation today.

There are three bodies in existence at the moment and I wonder if they would be better off as one body. That would curtail much of the expenditure on administration, salaries and costs. It is difficult to understand the differences between them. Much of the work could be done by the ESRI, which is in existence for more than 40 years. Is it necessary to have the NESC, the NESF and the NCPP in operation, given the current level of expertise in the public sector? I accept that if there is a partnership process, then there needs to be a backup for that process. However, I do not understand why the process should be segmented in three different areas when the State is already developing it in many Departments. In the Department of the Taoiseach, there are very substantial resources and excellent public servants who can do this work. Do we need to make jobs for others? These bodies have grown exponentially in recent years like plants in the ground and nobody is prepared to stop them.

The Minister of State spoke about the National Centre for Partnership and Performance, yet one could argue much of its work is done by the strategic management process in the public service, which aims for greater efficiency, consumer focus and organisational change. I served on that committee for a number of years and I understood that these developments were already under way in the public service. However, this Bill seems to reinvent it once more.

Section 7 gives the Taoiseach absolute power to set up any subgroup or body within this framework, following consultation with the Minister for Finance and any other Minister. We are putting into law a centralised process that has its beginning, middle and end in the Department of the Taoiseach. That is bad for our Parliament. If politicians want to take ownership of this process, we need a hands-on approach and we need to be involved in the process. Whatever comes from the partnership process may be debated here, but it does not require a positive resolution of either House of the Oireachtas. It only requires the assent of the Government. Is there any other plan with such significance over a three or five-year period which would not require a resolution of both Dáil and Seanad Éireann? This is bizarre. We are now giving power to the Taoiseach to establish any other body as he sees fit, without recourse to legislation. We will have to tease this out on Committee Stage.

The Minister of State referred to the fact that the office now comes under the Freedom of Information Act. Will the constituent bodies under the office also come under the Act? The public has a right to know what is going on in feeding the partnership process itself. The problem with benchmarking the first time was the lack of public accountability about the information being supplied to the decision-making body. Does the FOI provision apply to all three bodies under the office to be established? On Committee Stage of the Bill in the Dáil, Deputy Bruton attempted to have a much more rigorous procedure put in the Bill which would involve the Oireachtas. I will return to that issue on Committee Stage in this House.

Politicians say one thing in private and another thing in public. In fairness to Senator O'Toole, he is consistent on this issue. However, colleagues in the Minister of State's party and in my party say very different things about this process. We must make it work, we must make it more accountable and we must ensure that our Parliament is not sidelined as it has been so often by different Governments in the past ten years.