Eoghan Harris (Independent)

It is good to have a young and dynamic Minister of State working on this matter. As I have told the House, the political class has been long institutionalised by the public service. As someone who formerly worked in an active body to protect the public service, my disillusionment set in at the time of Charles Haughey and the politicisation of the Civil Service. The current public service is not fit for purpose and needs radical reform.

I am concerned by the defensive tones of some aspects of the Minister of State's speech. It is not yet properly understood by the political class that the debate that started some years ago was not started by people fomenting trouble between the public and private sectors. Alone in Europe, Ireland's differential between public and private sector pay is 20%. It is wasting energy to believe that the productive private sector will put up with this situation indefinitely.

Where the public sector is concerned, I am not referring to the people standing on the iceberg, namely, teachers, firemen and gardaí, people whose work can be seen and measured. I am referring to the low productivity levels hiding beneath the surface of the ice. These need to be addressed by a Minister with a jaundiced view. I am not happy with the general view held by all Ministers, if not particularly the Minister of State, that we are still in the world of social partnership. We are not. It is all over, finished. From now on, there will be a rigid scrutiny of the public sector.

We are not in the era of Whitaker. We did not get the service from the pure Civil Service for the past 30 years that we deserved. There is a bolshiness among civil servants. Senators hear bad stories about Secretaries General not telling their Ministers what productivity measures they propose to introduce. We hear stories about people who believe they run the Government. We hear stories about people who believe if they hang around for a Fine Gael-Labour Government, they will get a cushy number. They would be mistaken, given the comments of Deputy Bruton or Sherlock or even Deputy Rabbitte, who spoke on "Tonight with Vincent Browne" recently concerning statutory redundancies.

The part of the public sector that is not producing openly is living on borrowed time where public opinion is concerned. Any Minister or Government that plays footsie with such people will be in big electoral trouble. The next general election will be decided by the political party that most honestly commits to reform of the public sector. Let us get this into our heads - there will be no more Pollyanna-type stuff. Ministers will need to learn to stand up to their civil servants. Politics must dominate. The Oireachtas must dominate. The Civil Service cannot continue as a permanent government. We must revert to the time of Whitaker, who always knew his place was to advise Jack Lynch. Lynch took or turned down that advice, but it was good advice. I am not a bit sure about today's advice.

Regarding the Minister of State's remark about political commentators, I take his point, in that the media likes constant change. Some of those banging on about the public sector now want an end to the Croke Park deal. Make no mistake about it, though. The Croke Park deal should not be regarded by the Minister of State or the Government as some type of nice shadow of social partnership. That is all over. The Croke Park deal exists because public sector unions found out the hard way that there was no public support for their industrial action. They would have been crushed by the public. Any party supporting them would have been crushed as well. There is no support for public sector unions standing up to the people and justifying their position alone in the EU of being paid 20% more than their private sector counterparts, even taking the income and pension levies into account. Like any group of people, they will fight for their privileges to the bitter end, but they cannot be allowed to do so at the expense of the people.

The bankers are being dealt with. Some are before the courts and the rest are in bits. They do not have a bob or even a vote. The public sector must reform itself or it will be reformed.