Alan Kelly (Labour)

I return to the subject matter of the public service, about which I spoke yesterday in light of the Government's announcement. I will not repeat everything I said, but yesterday's announcement was much ado about nothing. Another report will be commissioned and, no matter what language is used or what thesaurus is brought out to say the same thing in a different way, this will be the fifth report in a few years. We have not seen any ingenuity from the Government on this issue. I repeat one point I made yesterday, namely, that the OECD report on our public service stated that we have one of the smallest, if not the smallest, public services of any country in Europe. If the Government is going to slash and burn, we must be careful that it does not do so in the case of any front-line services. That might have to be masked by the Government to achieve what it is setting out to achieve. I and my party will oppose that at all costs.

A number of statements in the report are of concern. They indicate the double standards of the Government and a row back on the policy it has pursued in recent years. There are statements to the effect that the recentralisation of services will be considered. That is from a Government that has a failed policy on decentralisation, yet now it is aiming to recentralise services in certain parts of the country, especially Dublin. That is a complete contradiction of its position in the past.

I have three suggestions on which the Government can concentrate in the process it is undertaking until next June. It should start with looking at the composition of State boards and the way they have been appointed. I agree with the esteemed Deputy Leader, from the Green Party, who stated previously that this matter needs to be examined. He is in government and should look into the matter and bring about reform. The management of certain sectors of the public service needs to be examined, as we have seen recently.

I asked the Leader at least once if not twice on the Order of Business and in various debates to have an audit carried out on the PMDS system in the public service, especially on senior management and from the top down. The system operates on a bottom-up basis and I am not convinced chief executives and senior management across the board are carrying it out to the degree intended. From my evidence, it has not been working.

We have seen an example of how the Government has taken a knife to freedom of information in recent weeks. The success of my colleague, Senator Ross, in getting the information on FÁS is commendable. One could argue that he should get his money back. If the Government and this House had not taken a knife to the Freedom of Information Act, we would not have the excessive costs on which everybody is commenting——