Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)

It will be necessary for all public service management to follow suit. They too will have to be resilient when staff or their representatives act as if we were living in another era. Change will have to be delivered in all public service workplaces and in the ways that all public servants do their daily business. It is worth re-emphasising that these achievements have been made despite the industrial unrest following the pay reductions early this year. It highlights the biggest achievement of the Croke Park agreement; priority services are being maintained and even improved despite a substantial ongoing fall in numbers, and there has been no industrial unrest to damage our reputation or impact on the most vulnerable despite two pay cuts.

The Government acknowledges that we cannot impose the scale of change we want on a system of more than 300,000 people without their agreement and leadership at all levels. This is the significance of the Croke Park agreement; it is based on shared principles between the Government and its employees, and specific agreed commitments on both sides.

It is also important to be conscious of the impact on individuals of the changes that are proposed. Redeployment at a strategic level means, for an individual, life changing decisions on changing the place they work, the colleagues they work with and the projects on which they work. What is at a strategic level an efficiency, results in a real impact on what an individual worker takes home in a week in overtime and shift allowances. Many, of course, have a right to be concerned about those changes. Active leadership will be necessary for the majority to accept that change must happen and over the medium term their working arrangements will improve. I have already mentioned the changes that have been made to certain rosters in the Garda Síochána. I have been advised that the changes made suited staff better in terms of their work arrangements, as well as working better in terms of management of the staff resources.

We must accept that some will never accept their work practices should ever change and that there may be a better way of doing things. At an individual level this can be addressed. It is more problematic where an entire group feels it can step outside the arrangements that apply to all and go in a separate uncharted way. I remind Senators what I stated in the House in October:

The Government considers that any party that chooses to remain outside the provisions of the agreement or that opposes its implementation cannot expect to benefit from the commitments [the Government] gave as part of the agreement. The principal commitments given were to no reductions in pay, no compulsory redundancies and an extension of the period within which the January 2010 pay reductions will be disregarded for the purposes of calculating public service pension entitlements.

This remains the position. However, I welcome the fact that since I stated this, the majority of public service unions have come into discussions on the practicalities of implementing the agreement.

I will use this occasion to repeat my invitation to the limited number of unions or associations, or would-be unions or associations, which have stayed outside the process to consider very carefully their position. To be blunt, I want to make it clear to those who want to stay outside the process that requests for negotiation of parts of the agreement or of the entire agenda for transformation of the public services will not be entertained, and attempts to thwart progress in the changes involved will be fiercely resisted. As far as the Government is concerned, the Croke Park agreement is the minimum needed to deliver the significant changes to public administration that will be needed as the numbers of public servants fall and as efficiencies are driven throughout the system. The Government has consistently made it clear, and it was repeated by the Minister for Finance last week in his budgetary statement, that these reductions in costs and numbers must be delivered if the Government is to maintain its side of the agreement.

I want to make a number of personal remarks on the agreement. I pay tribute to Senator Joe O'Toole who I understand is retiring voluntarily from this House. I thank him for his input into this agreement, his advice to me and the work he did behind the scenes to secure this agreement. He has made an enormous contribution, typically in a quiet manner. I also acknowledge the role that has been played by the implementation body, especially the role of P.J. Fitzpatrick. I stated that we possibly have not spoken up the agreement enough, but that is something we intend to consider next week. P.J. Fitzpatrick has driven the implementation body hard and has driven substantial change in the agreement. Despite political agendas that may seek to say we are not doing anything with the agreement, the agreement is delivering change daily across both the Civil Service and the public service. I acknowledge that the entire Government transformation agenda will not be possible unless we work harder at involving every public and civil servant in its implementation. It must be our priority in the new year to ensure the 300,000 people who continue to work in the system buy into the agenda. It is a challenge to have agreements at this level, but it is an even bigger challenge to ensure they are owned by those who work on the ground.

All the public servants of this country, staff working in emergency rooms, teachers who have spent the day in front of children, staff working in this House, people who are on call tonight and who may be called upon at 4 a.m. to grit roads throughout the country contribute daily to our economic recovery. Their numbers have decreased sharply and they are working harder within tighter budgets to ensure services are being delivered. CSO figures have shown that public servants have taken a bigger hit in terms of earnings than their counterparts in the private sector. Like all those who pay tax and social insurance, they will share the burdens imposed in the budget last week. By delivering the changes outlined in the Croke Park agreement, they will contribute again, not just to national recovery but to making this country a better and more prosperous place to live over the longer term and to ensuring their workplaces are more rewarding professionally and financially.