Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail)

What we are trying to do is ensure that this legislation achieves not alone what we want it to achieve but what the public are crying out for it to achieve. If we fail to do that, the consequences will be horrendous.

This year, we will borrow €18 billion to meet the deficit which children of future generations will be saddled with paying. If this legislation is not about achieving a balanced budget as quickly as possible then we are wasting our time discussing it and this effort is purely for electoral optics. The amendment before us, which I believe is eminently sensible, seeks to ensure that this Bill, which has no measurement of performance or identifiable targets will oblige the Minister and, in particular, his officials to provide specific targets in a whole range of areas.

This Bill deals with pay and public service numbers. I mentioned this morning that pay in respect of the public service increased from £7 billion in 1997 to €20 billion in 2009, with a respective increase in numbers from 220,000 to 370,000, an increase of 150,000. I was and remain critical of this. I do not believe anyone here could say the service to the public improved commensurately with that increase in numbers or resultant cost to the taxpayer. We must learn from that and ensure this does not happen again and that we return the economy to a sustainable level.

There has been much discussion about banking and a range of other issues. The one area the Government has direct control over in the current cataclysmic banking, fiscal and economic crisis, which is a global issue, is that of public expenditure. I want to ensure there is a commitment to this area. This amendment is a litmus test for the Minister of State, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, and the Minister, Deputy Howlin, with regard to whether they are serious or whether in fact this is dressing up a means of splitting a Department which will be as ineffective as the Department of Finance has been over the past decade. I ask that the Minister would deal with this issue.

There is also the issue of privatisation. Why would we not have specific targets in regard to privatisation? As one who earned his living in the private sector, I know people do not need to be afraid of privatisation. I saw initiatives taken with employees in my company, whereby employees were set up with their own companies and took on mechanical machinery which we sold to them and then hired back. They made many savings which, as a company, we could not get them to achieve. For example, they travelled to Northern Ireland to get spare parts for the equipment. It was a success story for them and for the company.

For too long, the taxpayer has been picking up the tab for inefficiencies and waste right across the public service. There is not a small office of the public service anywhere that is not capable of achieving savings of a minimum of 10% to 20%, which would go a long way towards correcting the budget deficit we have today. If we are not serious about tackling this, we are failing as politicians and failing to respond to the confidence which the people have placed in the current Government, which has the largest majority of any Government in the history of the State. However, that brings responsibilities, which must be faced up to.

On privatisation, a speaker made a comment earlier-----