Fiona O'Malley (Progressive Democrats)

I welcome the Minister of State and congratulate him on his appointment. I requested yesterday that he come to the House but I did not expect to see him so quickly. I will not, however, raise the matter I raised yesterday.

The OECD report is vital to the current position of the economic cycle. As Senator White stated, the public service is enormous and responsible for a huge budget, and we must get it right. A good public service is critical to our economic survival. It is timely to undertake such an assessment. The report is, by and large, positive reading. This is to be expected because the public service was set up to perform a particular duty and it did so exceedingly well, particularly in the 1950s when various public bodies were established. The mark of a good public service is its ability to adapt and, by and large, it has adapted well.

The public service has expanded by 30% in five years. This has caused a certain amount of alarm. When we had the money we needed the capacity which came with it. At present, we need to examine reform and how we can get the best out of the public service.

Previous speakers alluded to a synergy between the public and private sectors, which is a good way to innovate reform. Senator Mary White referred to it. We need an ability within our public service for public servants to move from the public to the private sector. It would be to our mutual benefit that this is the case. The public service would benefit from many practices in the private sector. If we had a better synergy between the two sectors it would improve the performance of our public sector.

I wish to speak in detail about motivating performance in those involved in the public sector. The report states that Ireland is at a stage of performance reporting rather than managing performance. It states, "There is a need to develop a performance culture that is based on achieving outputs and outcomes rather than compliance with processes". This is the essence of what our focus should be. We need a dynamic public service where risk, achievement and innovation are rewarded. I fear this is part of the problem we inherited in an overbureaucratic public service and it is where we need to focus our efforts.

From speaking to public servants I know that a sense of drowning in a deep bureaucracy is demotivating and will never deliver the results we need. Reform of the public service is one of largest challenges we face, particularly in terms of the pay talks and agreements, and it is vital that we get it. We need to be able to reward innovation on the part of public servants. To attract people from the private sector to the public sector we must ensure that payscales are appropriate. We may not have performed very well in this area in the past.

The other side of the equation is that those in the public service have great security and enjoy great benefits. This is why people in the private sector look at public sector workers with a certain level of resentment. This is where tension can exist. If people were able to work in both sectors, these misunderstandings might go.

Reform of the public sector is its single greatest protection. We do not need greater bureaucracy. We need a public service which is motivated, paid appropriately and has an enthusiasm for innovation, which is celebrated and rewarded.