Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail)

I am discussing the amendment, which is about setting targets. I am dealing with targets on privatisation, Jody. With regard to the issue of privatisation, a speaker referred to the dysfunctionality of the public service. Within recent days, staff at the Passport Office have been too busy to answer telephones due to a backlog. "Please call again" is the request. This has gone on for days but one cannot get through to them. If ever there was a candidate for privatisation, it has to be the Passport Office. If one wants to make a query on citizenship with the Department of Justice and Equality, one is asked to put it in writing and told there is a 26 month delay in dealing with appeals on citizenship. If one wants to make a claim for invalidity pension with the Department of Social Protection, one will find the waiting list is too long and that it will take more than nine months to process the claims.

This is our public service today, not last week or last month. If we are serious about tackling the issues, we must set specific targets. Anyone who has ever worked in business knows that nothing is achieved by aspirations. Somewhere in this Bill, we must promote value for money. It should be mandatory. People who are paid good, six figure salaries in the public service should have targets that they must achieve if they are to continue to be employed. This is what happens in the private sector.

With regard to procurement, there is no target for what will be saved. It is stated that it will be looked at, but there is no target. This is the point I am making. Ministers should be setting that target and it should be known.

What did increments add to the pay bill since 2008? The increments have continued as if this country was not in a state of financial collapse. What about overtime? It is paid throughout the public service to people on all salaries. I was amazed to find out that people on six figure salaries are actually getting compensation days for overtime. It is extraordinary.

As one of the significant employers in the country, State Street, which employes several thousand people here, staff who earn below some €33,000 a year will get overtime. Those earning above that amount work overtime, and there is a pretty regular pattern of having to work overtime, but there is no payment, no time off in lieu and no compensation. We are in the middle of an economic crisis. Unless we are all prepared to make the sacrifices and to up our game by at least 150%, and the capacity is definitely within the public service as well as the private sector to do that, we will not extricate ourselves from the position we are in.

The reason these clear-cut targets and objectives should be set is that, as a fundamental principle, if one wants to achieve change in an organisation, one must have clearly defined objectives that are well understood and appreciated, and known to and subscribed to by all the employees. Where that exists, there is a dynamic within the organisation for reform and change. Where one operates on an aspirational basis, which this Bill seems to set out to do, one will achieve nothing other than dividing up the personnel within the Department and creating a few more senior positions for promotion.

What we are about here is outputs. We do not have time to lose. It is quite possible we will be faced within a matter of 12 to 24 months with having to consider devaluation. Our only way of avoiding this, in my opinion, is by correcting as quickly as possible the budget deficit. We do not have control over the global financial markets or over global financial trade, which is beginning to stagnate and is a concern, and there are many external issues which will impact negatively on us. For God's sake, let us do the things we can do. Let us be brave enough to set the targets. If the Minister is brave enough to do that and he fails to reach some of those targets for justifiable reasons, I believe everyone here, including the Opposition, should be big enough to commend him on setting the targets in the first place.

We need a change of ethos and a change of mentality. I do not see it coming, however. I regret this because, unfortunately, we and, above all, our children will suffer as a consequence of our generation not taking up the baton, doing things right and ensuring their future will be better than ours.