Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail)

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit chun an Bille seo a phlé. I welcome the Minister of State and his officials who have obviously worked hard in preparing this legislation for us. The Bill, while it restates many of the provisions in previous Acts regulating inland fisheries, primarily sets out a new overarching structure, Inland Fisheries Ireland, which takes over the roles of the regional fisheries boards and the Central Fisheries Board. That is a move in the right direction. As a consequence there will be a significant reduction in the number of board members. The Minister of State mentioned 150 board members, with 23 in each regional fisheries area. That structure will now be replaced by a board of nine and I acknowledge the Minister of State's continuing intent to involve the Oireachtas joint committee in the appointment of board members. How well we did in that regard is another question and I shall return to this a little later. None the less, it is now an organisation which the Minister of State indicated will have in the order of 400 employees. While some of those will be seasonal workers, most will be employed full-time. The board members will be appointed rather than being elected, so there is a fundamental change in that regard.

I concur fully with the sentiments expressed by Senator O'Reilly about the need to reduce the number of quangos, eradicate waste and be much more cost effective in the manner in which we administer the State apparatus. There is great scope for savings in every Department, and perhaps this aspect is not being embraced as energetically as is warranted in the current climate. People working within the service should not fear that, and neither should politicians or those at the top who are paid exceptionally well, such as Secretaries General and their deputies. They should be embracing this challenge and pursuing it in such a way as to restore public confidence in the public services and give pride to those working within them in the knowledge that they are part of lean, energetic, efficient and cost effective organisations. The enthusiasm and dynamic that results from knowing one is part of such an organisation is extremely beneficial for the processes, administration and delivery of services to the public, which ultimately is what public service is all about. I am afraid we have lost sight of some that, so I fully concur with what Senator O'Reilly had to say in that regard.

We should be cognisant of the fact that in the past the regional structures provided an element of accountability to the administration of this particular State function. The removal of that will have some implications. I listened with interest to what the Minister of State had to say about the national forum which the new body will be tasked in establishing. It is to be hoped, as Senator O'Reilly said, that will go some way towards addressing the issue. I am mindful, however, of the weaknesses that may materialise. A prime example was the terrible mistake we made with the HSE. I remember arguing strongly at the time both with the Minister and others in Government to the effect that taking away the regional structures completely and having no overview apart from executive accountability at a tier below national level was a mistake. We have seen the consequences of that within the HSE. I am not a tremendous critic of the HSE which by and large does a reasonably good job. However, it could be done much better. The waste certainly runs into hundreds of millions, if not billions, and this could be targeted with a better focused structure. It need not even be at regional level but might, in fact, just concentrate at county level on the delivery of services in hospitals, community care, etc. This obviously is a much smaller operation than the HSE, but basically that area should be watched.

I noted the Minister of State's comments to the effect that the transfer of the staff to the new body would not militate against existing terms and conditions of employment. There is provision within the Bill for that and this is standard within most Bills where quangos are being set up. I have more than a slight reservation in this regard. There are provisions already within European legislation for transfers of undertakings and employees transferring in the private sector on the same terms and conditions. However, once they move to a new organisation there is no inhibition on this body to pursue efficiencies, achieve better organisational structures including, perhaps, rationalisation of personnel and that whole area. We have found that some of the quangos we have established are operating quite inefficiently at a cost well in excess of what is necessary. Many of them will point to this transfer situation in legislation, which appears to go well beyond what is required in the private sector, based on European law. That should be looked at as we cannot afford systems within our public administration that are not cost effective, especially where there are good managers. I appreciate that in many of these bodies there is not good management but where there is, managers should not be inhibited from implementing efficiencies and structures better than what they inherited. In that regard, I note the Minister of State indicated that in these straitened times we need to reduce the cost of public services. The newly streamlined Inland Fisheries Ireland will be better equipped to do this than its predecessor. He believes the new structures will be better able to cope with the required savings in public service numbers applicable across the public service generally.

I have raised an issue in the House before in the context of the NAMA legislation, and I am not sure whether the Minister of State, Deputy Mansergh, or the Minister for Finance was present. I called for a specific statutory obligation in the Bill for the organisation to be lean, effective and cost efficient and to give the best value for money that could be achieved. In other words, there should be a statutory obligation on the chief executive of the organisation to do that. This is important from the viewpoint of the public purse and the cost of running the public service where some 40% of all current expenditure is being passed on for future generations to pay. That situation is not sustainable, even in the medium term, and probably to a very limited degree in the short term.

If we include such a provision, we could avoid the recurrence of specific instances such as those that occurred in the recent past, where people in charge of a number of these quangos did not measure up to reasonable expectations of performance but who left with enhanced payments and gratuities in some instances. This is seen by the average person as almost a scandal in itself. However, if there were a statutory obligation, the Minister would be in a position to measure performance and if somebody was failing to meet that statutory obligation, the Minister could dispense with their services without any form of compensation. We must seek to operate on the same basis as the private sector in this regard. Fairness and reasonableness should permeate both the private and public sectors. There is no reason that one sector should be at a disadvantage, or advantage, against the other.

I note the cost of running Inland Fisheries Ireland, IFI, will be approximately €3 million less than its previous incarnation as a fisheries board. That is good, even though I presume that most of the €3 million will be made up of the reduction in public service salaries and the approximately €300,000 which will be saved by removing the expenses of the various boards that existed previously. It is a step in the right direction and I believe we should move further in that direction. A board will be appointed under this Bill. Obviously, there must be tremendous emphasis on the board having the knowledge to do the job and give direction to Inland Fisheries Ireland, but it must also have the commercial expertise to ensure the body operates efficiently.

In that regard, I was aghast recently when the new board of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, BAI, approved the budget of €7.6 million brought forward by the chief executive. It was only when the Oireachtas joint committee took issue with this imposition on the industry and sought significant reductions in the budget that it was reduced to €5.7 million. There are many bodies under the control of the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources. Over the next few months the Minister should invite the boards of all those bodies to meet him and he should impose an obligation on them to meet their responsibility in the current economic climate of ensuring that everything possible is done to cut costs.

I will conclude with a few minor points. I welcome many of the statutory obligations imposed on IFI under the Bill. Perhaps there should be a little more emphasis on exploiting the tourism potential. There is great scope in that regard. Admittedly, the body will take a keen interest in clean water and conservation, which are fundamental to attracting tourists.

Finally, the monetary penalties to be applied have been brought up to date from 1980 by the application of the consumer price index, CPI. We are making a mistake in this Bill by not including some escalation of the penalties for the future. I understand it is intended to bring forward a consolidation Bill, which might deal with that issue, but it would be no harm to provide in all such Bills for some escalation in penalties. I am not sure if the CPI is appropriate. However, there should be an automatic mechanism to ensure the penalties do not become obsolete or redundant due to inflation and the passage of time.