Paddy Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State and wish him well. I have no doubt he will do a great job in regard to his new post of responsibility.

Like other speakers, I welcome the introduction of this legislation to put this office on a statutory basis. Yes, I suppose it is another quango but it is both necessary and wanted. Will it do what it says on the tin? I hope it does. Will it save money and create efficiencies? It should. Will it cut the cost of payroll? I believe it should but, when I go through the Minister of State's speech and the content of the Bill, I wonder whether it will do so. I do not see where it will cut the costs. One of the gripes I have with new quangos being set up is that new staff are always put in place. They are never taken from Departments, local authorities or the HSE and put into this new office to make it more efficient and to reduce the staffing in the other areas. I believe we should be able to see where staff are being transferred from local authorities, the HSE and the Departments. If we could see staff from those areas being transferred into this new area, I would say that is a way forward and something we should all sign up to.

The Minister of State said that, eventually, there will be 970 people employed in this new set-up. The Minister, Deputy Donohoe, said there will be a saving of 145 jobs in regard to pay and pensions, and other shared services areas. To me, that means a considerable extra number of staff will be employed due to this new legislation when it is fully operational. As I said, this is one of my gripes in that I cannot see, physically, where the staff are being transferred from the various departments. It would be a good idea if we had that information and if we could see the level of staff reductions in Departments, local authorities and other shared services areas.

Nonetheless, I believe it is good legislation and it is wanted. Most of us in the House can remember PPARS, which was an absolute disaster. Its cost was estimated at €8 million but went up to €150 million, principally due to some of the issues referred to by Senator McDowell in regard to nurses and staff of the HSE. For example, a nurse in Castlebar was on a different pay level to a nurse in Sligo, Galway or Letterkenny, and there were many different types of scenarios within the organisation.Senator McDowell said the same thing occurred in the Army and Garda, but they got over that. I hope it will be possible to get over all those obligations as well with this legislation and that we will not have another PPARS situation on our hands, because what happened there was outrageous. I do not believe that will happen because I have read the Bill and we have started on the right footing before putting it on a statutory basis.

All in all, I welcome the Bill. I will have further questions on Committee Stage.