Seanad debates

Tuesday, 24 November 2015

Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest Bill 2015: Second Stage

 

2:30 pm

Photo of Aideen HaydenAideen Hayden (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House.This Bill seeks to implement the provisions agreed in the Lansdowne Road agreement earlier this year. As Members will know, the Lansdowne Road agreement follows on from the Haddington Road and Croke Park agreements and is designed to partially restore the remuneration of public servants and the pensions payable to former public servants. There are, of course, a number of miscellaneous amendments, some of which have received attention in the public domain. I think they have been referred to by some colleagues.

It is important to state for the record that this is only the first step in what will be a long process of coming back from the brink of economic disaster in this country. Some of the points mentioned by colleagues need to be addressed. Nobody will argue that the third-level system in this country, be it the university or institute of technology system, does not need significant investment. Nobody will argue that the plight of contract lecturers does not need to be addressed. Nobody will argue that the situation pertaining to teachers coming into the system - the so-called "yellow packers" - whereby they enter the profession on lesser terms than existing teachers is acceptable. I would not agree with any of that and I do not think any other Members of this House would agree with it either. There is no doubt that these matters need to be addressed.

There has been an unprecedented improvement in Ireland's financial situation in the past two years. In a short space of time, Ireland has exited what is known as the bailout and has a growth rate the envy of Europe. This has already been mentioned. Ireland has gone from a position where we were taking billions of euro out of the national budget annually to a position where we are restoring spending and reducing taxes - to the tune of €1.5 billion this year. While we may argue the toss as to whether the measures in the last budget favour the less well-off, it is interesting to note that a recent OECD report on Ireland demonstrated that in spite of the deep recession suffered by the Irish economy, Government actions to maintain social supports at enormous cost have ensured that Ireland is a more equal society than it was at the beginning of the recession.

It is important to mention that we still have one of the highest debt levels in the EU. In spite of the fact that our unemployment level has dropped to below 9%, we must bear in mind that not everything can be done in one fell swoop. Improvements in our economy now mean that we are in a position to restore services. We are in a position where we can say to every graduating nurse in the country that he or she will be offered a post. There are 750 more nurses in our system than there were this time last year - September to September - and there are more doctors in the Irish medical system than ever before. Improvements take time but this Government is certainly well on the way to improving health services in this country. Moreover, we are improving supports for vulnerable groups, are engaging in public service recruitment and for the first time in seven years, are acknowledging the contribution of public servants by also restoring some of the losses public servants have taken in during that period. We must remember that the various FEMPI Acts reduced the cost to the Exchequer of public service pay and pensions by roughly €3.7 billion or by more than one fifth and €2.2 billion in direct costs. This cannot be reversed in one piece of legislation.

We must also remember that hand in hand with these measures, there have been measures to improve productivity and deliver a public service fit for the 21st century. Public servants are now working an additional 15 million hours with a 10% reduction in staff. Our public service has changed the way it does business or at least the way it is perceived to do business. At the beginning of the crisis and for the first number of years when the number of unemployed people in Ireland looked like it might reach 500,000, I met people in the direst of circumstances who in some cases had lost everything but had nothing but praise for the people working on the front line of social welfare. I heard the same about every Department. I heard the same about local authority staff and in fact every aspect of the public service, bar traffic wardens. I am proud of the way our public service responded and stood up during this crisis and it is time we gave something back. Some people have suggested that we must give something back because the State could be challenged legally for not removing emergency measures when they are no longer necessary but I believe we give something back because it is the right thing to do.

Public service should be valued in any mature society and I believe this crisis has taken Irish people back from the brink of cynicism about our public servants. There has been an unhelpful narrative that perhaps stems from a history of deprivation where the public or Civil Service represented security and a status in society and where anyone who achieved an education sought a job in the Civil Service. Over time, this led to a view of Ireland externally as a society that did not encourage entrepreneurship. We saw evidence of this in the 1980s and 1990s where the discourse changed and business became the Holy Grail. During the 2000s, how many of us heard the mantra that if one or other of our famous businesspeople was running the country, things would be different? If only. There is no doubt that the view of the public service, which involved images of it being overly bureaucratic, unwilling to change, having no name and no face, letters signed "Is mise le meas", a job for life and so on, was very damaging to our public service. The crisis in our finances has allowed the Irish people to see once again the value of our public service and that is a good thing. The measures in this legislation are but a step on the road but they are an important step and I welcome them. I welcome the fact that lower-paid workers will gain more proportionally but all will benefit, which is only right. Let us not forget that in the face of the greatest storm when other countries saw different outcomes, industrial relations in this country were peaceful and the lights did not go out. Our public service has been a credit to this country and I am delighted to stand here to talk about this legislation. The time has come to give something back.

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