Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael)

I join Senator O'Toole in welcoming the decision of the Government to introduce a voluntary redundancy scheme in the HSE. I remind Senator O'Malley that the Government is making it up as it goes along. The Government has been in place for 13 years and has shrunk from and funked every opportunity to have real reform of the public service. I ask the Deputy Leader to send a message today to the CPSU that the half hour allocated for banking should be done away with and let it get into the real world. We are all in this together but that type of propaganda does not do us any good.

I ask the Deputy Leader whether the Minister, Deputy Harney, will come to the House to make a statement on her proposal? As a proud public service advocate, it is important that she enshrines in the new deal that there will not be redeployment back into the scheme and that people who take the redundancy package cannot be redeployed in the HSE or elsewhere. Let us have real reform in the public service. It is important we protect the jobs which are there because, as I said before in the House, we should not have the public versus private war which certain Members of this House want to have.

I also ask that we examine the possibility of bringing the budget forward. There will be an interregnum between the publication of the four-year strategy and the budget and if you listen to the commentary today on every radio programme and read every newspaper, despite what Senator Feeney believes, the people are afraid. They are in trepidation. They are also incandescent with rage. They blame everyone, the Government in particular which has been asleep for 13 years and which has made a monumental mistake in this country. That said, it is important to reassure not only the markets but also our people and give them hope and optimism. The people do not see it from Deputy McDaid today, nor from the Government and nor from the benches opposite.