Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House and always have wished him well in his reform agenda. As for this one, I refer to the attempt at an internal devaluation, given we do not have a currency to devalue externally. In itself, that opens up issues as to the reasons we did not read the small print before joining up with the single currency. However, it is very difficult where one has an extremely strong public sector trade union movement and very little trade union movement outside of that because, as the Minister has pointed out himself so many times, they have taken the hits. This measure must come in tandem with other proposals. I have heard the Secretary General of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform talk about the need for a Government economic service to improve the expertise through all the Departments, rather than having them operating as independent republics. Similarly, the control of lobbyists is absolutely essential, certainly as one considers how we got into trouble. Moreover, I refer to the role of whistleblowers, where they see inefficiencies and so on, to tell the Minister or other Ministers as the Government tries to steer its way through all of this. I refer to a problem outlined on page 12 of the bord snip nua report, which is that in the period of expansion between 1997 and 2009, higher management levels in the Civil Service grew by approximately 82%, while Civil Service numbers as a whole increased by 27%.

That is all part of the adjustment which the Minister is attempting. I welcome his statement on the first page that we must envisage a redeployment of surpluses in one organisation to meet deficits in another. In previous discussions on such matters I looked at the exemptions. I note that Córas Iompair Éireann, Cork Airport Authority, Dublin Airport Authority, the ESB, EirGrid, and the Shannon Airport Authority are exempted. According to Mr. Guiomard, the Commissioner for Aviation Regulation, they are documented bodies with surplus staff because of the decline in air traffic . The extra money that CIE got last year was used entirely to buy out surplus staff. Do we not have vacancies elsewhere for drivers of public transport vehicles? Could they not be redeployed? The Minister is unnecessarily constrained by Schedule 3. That does not mean I do not commend him for the significant issue being tackled. He can take it I will support him in that regard.

I have another concern. In the Book of Estimates for the Minister’s own Department, on page 59 there is a reference to the Exchequer pay bill between 2012 and 2013, which rose from €18.773 million to €20.382 million. As I am sure his officials correctly calculated, that is a 9% increase, but the associated public sector employees reduced from 340 to 318, which is a 6% decrease. There has been a large increase in average pay in the Minister’s Department. Perhaps that is necessary when we are trying to accomplish this reform but I have gone through the numbers and something similar happened in the Department of the Taoiseach where there was a 7% increase in staff and a 2% increase in pay. It also happened in the Department of Health, which as the Minister is aware has been a source of some discontent as far as the troika is concerned. There has been a large increase in the average pay of employees in the Department of Health. The salaries bill went up by 5% and the number of people employed went down by 4.7%. There was an approximate 10% increase in the staff of the Department of Health at managerial level. Are the managerial costs of what we are trying to do exceeding all benefits that are possible? We must review the situation. One could ask whether we should be much stricter in preparing the next budget than the figures that have been presented to us. Those are nettles that we must grasp.

I sat on the National Economic and Social Council and heard for years from the public sector trade unions that if only the Taoiseach’s Department, which controlled that entity at the time, would be imaginative they would be brilliantly imaginative and wonderful reform proposals would emerge. I have never seen them and I am still waiting for them. I hope the Minister will be the person to deliver them but it has taken an lot of hot air and empty promises. The legacy of social partnership in that regard is not great when one considers benchmarking and the recruitment of all the extra managers. Everyone who was elected two years ago must try to cope with that and we rely on the Minister for leadership. We need much stricter economic control. We must examine whether the managers are delivering. There is no point in getting rid of people low down the scale and for the average pay to keep rising rapidly. One could ask how much of the expenditure is influenced by social partnership and whether it is an appropriate model given that it is an insider-outsider labour market. More than 300,000 have left the country, 40% of whom were under 25. We would be in a similar situation to Greece were it not for emigration. I appreciate the Minister’s efforts to keep us out of such a situation by the reforms we are implementing but we need more radical reform than we are seeing.

The Minister referred to the top level appointments committee, TLAC, and the concerns that existed before he came to office. There was a remarkable record of appointing only insiders. Could the composition of the TLAC be changed to give one availability to a wider pool of people on which to draw? This is the kernel of a reform agenda that we need. All sheltered sectors in this country cost too much and public sector services are part of that. The Minister’s attempt to get more efficiency should be supported by the House.