Joe O'Toole (Independent)

I welcome the Minister of State and appreciate the work he has done in recent months in this area. I also thank him for acknowledging the commitment of public servants. Those who are not part of the Croke Park agreement cannot have pay protection, pension protection and job security. The Taoiseach said something similar this morning and it is important trade union leaders who are not party to the deal explain this to their members.

I agree with all of the Minister of State's speech, but it must be more specific. We want to seek efficiencies, make savings and enhance the public service. We all know the intellectual investment that has been made in the public service by those who work in it. I want to see them people blossom and flourish and a reflection of that intellectual investment.

The Minister of State mentioned savings. He has said, however, that this is not a cost saving exercise, but cost saving must be one of the deal's objectives. I would like to know how much the Minister of State intends to save and the number of jobs by which the public sector will be reduced. We should be able to follow the progress made in these areas. I do not believe the Minister of State will get the support he thinks he should receive in the places that should support him.

I want the Minister of State to outline the timeframe and the review dates for the agreement. When he comes back in one month, I will not be hopping up and down, accusing him of missing a date, but I will hop up and down if I cannot measure progress. I could not stand up next month and do that after listening to him today, as the figures were missing and must be set out.

Will the Minister of State reassure me that every Minister and Minister of State has seen, engaged with and fully understood the proposals for reform and transformation in his or her Department or section? Any Minister who has not done that is not doing his or her job. Will he further reassure me that every proposal from every Department will have timeframes and key performance indicators attached in order that we will know if we have made progress and what we need to examine, with review dates for each Department? If these are not in place, we cannot know what is happening.

The Government supports the agreement, but it must understand that it must become physically involved. My objective in this regard is simple. The public and civil services have the intellectual capacity to create a model for all of Europe of best practice in the delivery and running of public services. I want this to be the objective and will not hold back from it. From the Minister of State's comments, however, I am not convinced it will occur. I do not have time to go into more detail now, so I will do so during the coming months.

Every Senator rises to speak about quangos. I would like a report from the Minister of State on those quangos. It should tell us which of the 750 are paying for themselves, which are being paid for by us, which have not met their legislative responsibilities to do this, that or the other and which have not got their accounts or annual reports to the Oireachtas on time. When I see that report, I will make my first judgment on whether they are efficient and fit for purpose. We could separate out those that are not meeting their deadlines etc. I could say more, but my point is that I want measurable benchmarks for quangos instead of a large discussion on getting rid of them all. To where will the services for which they are responsible be redistributed if they die? Some quangos could become semi-State companies on their own. How many of them are tied to the apron strings of their Departments and prevented from being autonomous and doing the jobs they were set up to do? These are the benchmarks that could be considered by the implementation people.

I could ask all sorts of questions about the Civil Service, but I am looking at the Minister of State's decent advisers behind him. In 1981, the Department of Public Service was created and, as far as the world is concerned, shut down some years later when a Fianna Fáil Government entered power. No one except a few of us insiders knows that the Department still exists on Merrion Street inside the building housing the Department of Finance. Do we need two Departments? Is there a need for a Department for the public sector? I know what the Minister of State's programmed answer is, but I pose this as a challenging question. Why can the job not be done within an existing Department? Why is the structure of an additional Department required at line level? People over there will love my question, but at least it will give them something to discuss.