Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House and I wish him well in his endeavours. The Minister stated the pay bill fell from €17.5 billion in 2009 to €14.1 billion, and we have managed to do the job with 30,000 fewer people on the payroll. This reform deserves credit. We had to do it, and we still have a debt to GDP ratio of 120%. When we lobbied our way into this situation we used to state as a percentage of GDP Ireland spends too little on whatever our favourite project was, but in cash terms we were not that far behind the countries we subsequently asked to bail us out. The GDP figure has a certain strange element in Ireland which is not present in other countries and we must watch out for this.

In retrospect social partnership may have led to a very large growth in the Taoiseach's Department to supervise the other Departments. Commitments were made to reduce it to a small Cabinet office, which it was in its heyday. Very powerful Taoisigh had one tenth of the staff which were there subsequently. It is not necessary to have this level of duplication.

I wish the Minister well with regard to procurement. He mentioned €500 million. Already I hear stories of it creaking and that someone going to a conference will stay in a certain hotel because procurement decreed it although everyone knows there is a cheaper hotel around the corner. Many services in Ireland are competitive. In the UK it was stated some of the procurement deals for the NHS could have been done by the matron going to Marks & Spencer and picking up the laundry. Opponents would state it is the re-introduction of a Russian-style retail operation with one great place in Athlone-----