Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State and congratulate him, acknowledging the challenge he faces. I know well he is up to it and I wish him well because it is a difficult task.

I am not a fan of the Croke Park agreement. I can see the benefit in having consensus and in working with the unions to achieve a transformation in the public service. However, while the social partnership model which evolved in the late 1980s was an example to many countries, it lost its way in the past decade or so. Some of the current economic challenges arise as a consequence.

The Minister of State said he intends this agreement should make significant savings, as it must, and it must also improve the delivery of services. It is difficult to be confident about it, however, and even the Minister of State was critical in some respects. The implementation has been very slow in getting off the ground. I do not know whether this betrays a certain reluctance on the part of senior staff or not. However, the letters coming to the bodies from the Departments arrived very late in the day. I had discussions at a joint committee meeting this morning with the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, whose representatives told me it had done nothing as yet in regard to the agreement and that it is waiting on guidance from the Department. Therein lies a significant problem. I hope it succeeds but I am far from optimistic.

If we do not get to a situation where managers at lower levels are empowered, we will get nowhere. This is being controlled from the top. From my experience in management, I know that when I wanted to make savings in a company in difficult times, I went to the managers in the different areas and I set them a challenge to identify savings. They did it, and the really good managers identified themselves by tackling waste and identifying where savings could be made. Those who were not up to the job also identified themselves by not coming back with anything. The point is that they knew there would be an audit of their findings, they would be accountable for their suggestions and, where they had not come forward with suggestions which they should easily have identified, there were consequences. Unfortunately, we do not have a public service where there is that level or, for that matter, any significant level of accountability.

I want to preface these remarks by noting there are many excellent people in the public service for whom I have tremendous admiration and who would command top jobs in the private sector. However, there are also many in the public sector who are hiding - they are punching in time until they get to retirement age and, unfortunately, some of them have decades to go before they get to that stage. For example, I hear of people in certain segments of the public sector who are playing DVDs to occupy their time simply because they have no work to do.