Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael)

I compliment the Minister of State on the work he has done to date, to which I will return. John Boland did this as Minister for the Public Service in the 1980s. We need to reform our public sector. I say this as an unashamed public servant who comes from a family whose members have given dedicated service to the public sector. My brothers and sisters work in the public sector, as did my parents, and so do many of my friends. We are not fat cats. Many public servants are struggling. I regret having had a slagging match yesterday with Senator Harris, whom I respect greatly, but I ask Senators to be careful in our use of language to avoid creating a war between the public and private sectors. We must bring people with us.

Reform is necessary. People are frightened because they do not see leadership or hope. I commend the unions that brought their members to the ballot box to vote for the Croke Park agreement. Fine Gael was the first political party in the State to say that the agreement must be passed and we will, to take up Senator Harris's challenge, lead reform in the public sector. We will not divide people, but we will tell the truth and be honest. There must be pain and austerity, but the way in which we drive reform will show our Leader, Deputy Kenny, as the Taoiseach he can be.

There has not been enough communication between the Government and the people, and there must be more. As Senator White rightly said, this deal was passed six or seven months ago. What has happened since then? The Minister of State spoke about commitments to reductions in pay and redundancies, but gave no guarantees. The Minister for Community, Equality and Gaeltacht Affairs, Deputy Carey, made a similar comment on "The Week in Politics" recently, and the Minister of State himself spoke in an ambiguous manner. What is the Government telling people? We must bring people with us. The Minister of State was correct when he said that it was not today's statements in the House that would achieve reform in the public sector. We in the House will not drive the budgetary process, but we can help by ensuring that people become involved.

There is a challenge for all of us in the middle of this economic collapse. The unions, the ordinary workers, the Government and the political classes - the Labour Party, Fine Gael or whoever - have a responsibility to implement change. It is better to be employed than unemployed, but I ask Members of the House to stop describing sectors as non-productive or productive. Are they telling us that the ordinary people who work in the Houses of the Oireachtas and in our hospitals are not productive or that services are not being delivered? In many cases services are being delivered properly. Senator O'Toole was correct in stating that we need milestones to measure progress. We must set targets.

Benchmarking was a disaster for this country. Yes, as a teacher, I benefited from it. I received X euro per hour to do supervision, which I would have done every day anyway because I wanted to. I met the students and got to know them, engaging with them in football and hurling training. We did not need benchmarking. It added large numbers of staff and wage increases to the public sector, many of which were not necessary or surplus to requirements.

In acknowledging the need for reform, it is important that we set out the context of the great work that is being done by our public sector workers. President McAleese made this a central tenet of her remarks at a conference at the Institute of Public Administration. It is worth noting that at the same conference, Brigid Laffan spoke about the fact that middle management grew by 82% from 1997 to 2009, despite the fact that overall Civil Service numbers fell by 27% in the same period. As Professor Laffan pointed out, there is a need for a renewal agenda. This must address the issue of governance in the public sector. I fully subscribe to the view about the HSE, central government, the Civil Service, local government, semi-States and Senator O'Toole's point about the distribution of grants from the VECs. What is happening is crazy. We must be imaginative and real. That is how we can drive consensus, not by playing some phoney game about consensus.

The objective for us must be to create best practice in the delivery of services, and I fully agree with Senator O'Toole on that. We do not achieve that by lampooning and denigrating public sector workers. They are frightened. I challenge anyone in this House to meet teachers, doctors, guards, nurses and others in jobs that pay less than €35,000 per annum who are doing well. They are not doing well. They were asked by their friends in the boom time why they were working in the public sector when they could have been making money elsewhere. I know past pupils of mine who refused jobs as porters in hospitals or as care assistants because they were working in building and were making a fortune. Where are they now? They have emigrated or are unemployed.

There is a massive amount of work to be done. The public sector is productive. The private sector has taken a huge hit. There are difficulties in the private sector, but we have a duty to bring our people with us to have real reform. If we want a motivated public sector, then its workers should not be driven away. They should be given encouragement and hope.

I will conclude by quoting from Thomas Friedman's article, of which some political parties should take note:

After 65 years in which politics in the West was, mostly, about giving things away to voters, it's now going to be, mostly, about taking things away. Goodbye Tooth Fairy politics, hello Root Canal politics.

That is the choice we face, but we must be honest.