Joe O'Toole (Independent)

This is a very important week in European history. In most of the countries of western Europe there is a remarkable memory spreagtha on 11 November each year. I made this point some years ago in the Seanad and I raise it again. We in this House showed a lot of support for the Shot at Dawn campaign. We have shown a lot of support over the years for what has happened in our history. Many Irish people went to fight in the Great War, the First World War. Some of them went to fight because they believed in what was being protected and what needed to be protected. Others went to put bread on the table for their families. Still others went because they were inspired by the political leadership at the time which asked them to do so. Some great people such as Tom Kettle and others laid down their lives on that occasion. We have been afraid to remember or deal with that. In effect, we have eradicated and erased them from our history and folk memory. We have been remiss at all times and in total denial.

I do not suggest that we buy in to the Poppy Day in Britain but if we do not do that, I suggest we should have a poppy of our own or that we should remember in some other appropriate fashion Irish people who died in the Great War. We should not be afraid to face up to our history and to honour people who died in a good cause. Perhaps a Minister of State with responsibility for protocol in the Department of the Taoiseach could come to the House to explain why we cannot do this and why we do not consider it important to remember those people. It is still a significant issue three or four generations later to the families of those who died at that time, as we found out during the Shot at Dawn campaign.

Yesterday, I raised the Croke Park agreement. I do not completely support the points raised by my colleague, Senator Marc MacSharry, but he should be listened to on the issue. We were given a commitment a couple of weeks ago that the objectives and targets of each Department, Minister and Secretary General would be available and published. I have not seen them yet. Last week I stated that unless we have clear targets of saving €1 billion a year at least and reducing the number of jobs in the public sector by 20,000, then we are going nowhere. That target must be broken down into each Department. If I do not see that in front of me then I do not believe there is political traction or buy-in from senior civil servants. We should demand it. I ask the Leader to seek copies of those targets for Members of the House. I want to see it happening. I will have a lot more to say on the issue.

Overtime in the public sector costs more than €1 billion. Halving that would result straight away in savings of €500 million. A total of 20,000 jobs at an average of €45,000 a year is almost €1 billion. It is a big ask to reduce the public service pay bill by €1 billion but it is doable. It can only be doable if we start now. The Health Service Executive was a good start. I welcomed that initiative two or three weeks ago. I indicated to Members that it would run and play as it has. More needs to be done. We should be seeing action now but it is not happening because everyone is standing back and waiting.