Michael Finucane (Fine Gael)

I congratulate Deputy Noel Ahern on his appointment as Minister of State. This is an expensive, wasteful and cynical Bill. We have been asked to create three new posts, each of which will cost €4 million over the life of the Government. Let me give Members an idea of what could be done with €4 million. It would fund 700,000 home help hours or give 23,000 people medical cards. The country is being asked to forfeit other priorities without a business case being made for these posts, the setting of performance tests or any indication that they will yield value to the taxpayer. While my party has no personal gripes with these lucky €4 million men, we will not stand over this roughshod trampling down of the taxpayer.

The path to the creation of three new Government posts is the very same one that resulted in the break-neck expansion of public spending in recent years without commensurate improvements in the quality of public services and where we paid out €1.3 billion in benchmarking awards and got precious little in return. It is soft option politics. It is the sort of politics we need to bring an end to if we are to meet the new challenges this country faces.

The solemn pledges on class sizes, hospital waiting lists and the delivery of social and affordable housing have been cast aside without any consequences for the Ministers concerned. The failure to apply proper evaluation procedures in advance of committing public moneys has resulted in significant costs for the taxpayer but no consequences for the sponsoring Minister. Stadium Campus Ireland, electronic voting, MediaLab Europe, PPARS and the Punchestown equine centre are some such examples. The virtual collapse of major Government policies, such as decentralisation and the climate change strategy, have been simply ignored. Even the failure by a Minister to read the brief provided for him by officials, a failure that resulted in significant costs to the taxpayer, has had no consequences for the Minister concerned. The ordinary taxpayer is sick, sore and tired of this treatment.

No test of performance has been applied by the Taoiseach in his selection of Ministers and Ministers of State. As a consequence, the essential dynamic of any organisation to perform to a high standard is being undermined. Posts are being filled by time servers when loyalty and endurance are the primary qualities recognised.

This Bill is a measure to create new posts designed to quell unrest among backbenchers, who rightly see a congested and unfair plutocracy blocking the way of new talent. The Taoiseach has argued that government has become more complex and he needs new posts to manage the volume of business, New challengers are always arising, just as there is always a constant demand for new programmes and activities. It is the role of the Taoiseach, however, to set priorities. When some new need arises and demands attention, other areas of lower priority that have been soaking up resources must make way. If there are new tasks that need the supervision of a dedicated Minister of State, they should be accommodated by closing down areas that no longer justify such a level of political oversight.

The appointment of each Minister of State will cost the taxpayer €4 million over the life of this Government. To justify such spending, a clear policy agenda with a tough performance standard should be set out, but because of the slide in the performance standards of senior Ministers, the Taoiseach would have no credible authority to impose such demands on newly appointed Ministers of State. I do not think either that the case for an innovation strategy is strong. Do we really need separate Departments for forestry and for horticulture on top of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, with its own senior Ministry? Is there not scope to consolidate integration policy with equality? We now have separate Ministers for food and food safety. The Taoiseach's concern was not about identifying new areas of importance and allocating people skill and aptitude to address these tasks. It has been widely publicised that many backbenchers feel aggrieved by the selection process on which the Taoiseach has embarked with regard to the appointment of Ministers of State.

This Bill is about nothing other than keeping the Green Party, which has got nothing in terms of policy, happy. The Taoiseach and Fianna Fáil got such a good deal from a weak, pathetic and miserable Green Party negotiating team, that they decided to take solace in jobs for the boys. This Government has disgraced itself from the start. Since the election we have been treated to failure to allow the Oireachtas to know what agreements have been entered into in order to copperfasten this Government. It is an affront to proper standards of accountability. It is a disgrace that the Taoiseach, when he did not need the Independent Members of the House, entered into private deals with them without making these deals or their quantifiable costs known to the electorate. It is an insult to the people. The taxpayer is entitled to know the details of those private deals. There should not be private arrangements between the Taoiseach and Independent Members of this or the other House.

The selection by the Taoiseach of his preferred nominee for Leas-Cheann Comhairle was a crude political stroke that showed no respect to the mandate of other Deputies, as was the appointment of a Ceann Comhairle, once again from the Government party. The pronouncements on the suitability of Deputy Beverly Flynn for ministerial position at a time when she was seeking to overturn existing law and to reduce the payments owing by her to RTE showed little respect for the independence of the authorities dealing with those issues. This is a point that was brought up in the ethics Bill that we discussed yesterday. I raise this as an issue that, among others, arose since the election.

Fianna Fáil, aided and abetted by the Progressive Democrats, of whom we would expect nothing else, and the Green Party, of whom we expected so much more, may have made a correct calculation that by the time voters are again asked to express their preferences, this sort of contempt for standards will be long forgotten. We make the point loudly and clearly that we will strive for higher ideals. Where the Government proceeds in the direction it has gone already in the past in regard to appointments, we will quickly remind it of its aberrations. We see this as an expensive, wasteful and cynical Bill.