Mary White (Fianna Fail)

I am delighted to welcome the Minister of State. The Croke Park agreement is the most ambitious agenda for change ever negotiated for the public service. Drawn up against a background of economic crisis, including unprecedented cuts in public spending, the agreement commits public service management and trade unions to significant changes across the public service. It is more than a pay deal because it works towards the Government's high level goal of creating a leaner and more effectively integrated public service that focuses on the needs of citizens, as set out in the OECD public management review of Ireland. When the OECD's review was launched with great excitement in autumn 2008 we believed the transformation would be rapid but it turned out to be slower than expected. Philip Kelly, who is assistant secretary general in the Department of the Taoiseach and a member of the implementation body for the Croke Park agreement, has pointed out that the public service needs to be transformed regardless of our current crisis. He further stated that the need for innovation in how we do our business is embedded in the actions set out in the Croke Park agreement. This requires us to capture ideas about redesigning the processes we use to manufacture the services we deliver and to change our administrative structures.

Public services are an integral component of business in Ireland. It is critical to ensure this sector provides efficient services, such as State support in marketing, technology and infrastructure development and in the training and upskilling of the workforce. As a business woman in Leinster House, the word "innovation" is dear to my heart. Every business has to innovate constantly to survive. As I have previously stated in this House, I find the way the Government does its business to be very frustrating. It carves new policies and arrangements in stone and never returns to them six months later to see how they are working. That is the opposite to doing business and it is absolutely crazy. If one introduces a new initiative, one must improve on it to ensure it delivers what was originally promised.

Last Friday, I called an emergency meeting of the most high powered people in the area of suicide. As my colleagues in the Seanad will be aware, I have drawn up a policy document on suicide in the new Ireland. I called the meeting out of frustration because little has changed in the area of suicide prevention. Every day, at least two people die from suicide. A further 60,000 are self-harming. Children can suffer from mental illness but the incidence of suicide rises sharply from the age of 13 or 14 before it stabilises at 18 years. It breaks my heart that 2,500 children are waiting for public sector assessments because they cannot afford to pay for psychiatrists for assessment or treatment. As a former teacher, the Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children, Deputy Áine Brady, will understand what it is like to teach children with problems. Approximately 30% of the children on the waiting list have ADHD, which can be traumatic in the classroom, 17% have been waiting for one year and 63% have been waiting for three months purely because they come from an underprivileged background.

The top honchos are driving me to blow the issue out of the water in the new year. Little has changed in the area of suicide prevention over the past 20 years. The Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children, Deputy Moloney, is doing his utmost to highlight the issue of stigma but having worked in the public sector on two occasions, I have experience of the under utilisation of human potential and the absence of management. This can be contrasted with any self-respecting company which is creating employment and exporting. Such companies exhibit energy and passion to increase business and create employment.

My experience of dealing with the HSE on the issue of suicide suggests it is very relaxed and easy going. It recently appointed a new national director of child and family services as part of a drive to improve child protection. Everyone in this House is aware of the failure of people who are employed in the public sector to produce reports and do their jobs properly. The people responsible for child protection in the HSE would not be kept on by a business. They lack the courage, energy and passion needed to do their jobs properly.