Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have my breath this time which will be a help. I welcome the support that has been given to the Bill. I apologise for the confusion over the script. We had not been asked to have copies for circulation but I assure the House that in future when I come here to deal with legislation in particular that scripts will be circulated.

This is not a quango. A quango in the true sense of the word is a quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation. It is not a statutory body. I am fully in favour of the de-quangoisation of Ireland. That is the genesis of this project, which came about by streamlining, as Senator McDowell said, the complexity in relation to HR, payments, payroll and other matters. That is why it is referred to as a shared service. If anything, this is not a quango. The NSSO is up and running since 2014 and has delivered a lot of efficiencies already. We are not creating anything here; what we are doing is giving the NSSO statutory recognition because at the end of the day the people that are operating the system are not procured from the outside. We do not find them on a buy and sell service. They are civil servants and they have a right to be put on a statutory basis if nothing else. It is very important for Oireachtas Members to note that we are anxious to make sure that the staff of the NSSO get the statutory recognition they deserve and the protection that affords. We could leave the body in limbo but that would be the wrong thing to do.

We are not creating anything new and we are not imparting any new powers. What we are doing is extending a level of accountability that currently does not exist. That point has been missed by many. There were some calls for the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Committee of Public Accounts to have special regard for it. One does not accord special treatment by the Committee of Public Accounts or the Comptroller and Auditor General to a statutory body because it is inferred from the Comptroller and Auditor General Acts that the body is already within its remit. Therefore, there is no point in doing it. The Comptroller and Auditor General Acts trump everything.

Everything that is established by statute will have an Accounting Officer, in this case the chief executive, who is accountable to the Committee of Public Accounts. He or she is also accountable to the Secretary General of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. That in itself is an improvement on the current situation. The CEO will be asked to come before the Committee of Public Accounts. That was not plucked out of the air in the Dáil or in the committee, that situation is inferred from existing legislation on the Statute Book. The Department's role in this regard is very clear in that the Department will maintain a monitoring function in the same way as it does with everything else. I am also the Minister of State with responsibility for procurement so Members will be delighted to hear I will be back to them in that guise as well.

Accountability was mentioned in the other House as well and it was mentioned in the committee. Yes, there will be an annual report and it will be laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas and can be debated in the Seanad, Dáil and in committee. That is a good thing. That is not and cannot be the case at the moment so, if anything, this is an improvement. The body was set up in 2014 and, as Senator Paddy Burke has alluded to, has already made a lot of efficiencies. The very fact that we can centralise the services is important. This is nothing new. We have not designed something from scratch. A lot of us in this room were members of local authorities, which have been doing this for many years. They proceeded on the basis of consultation with employee representatives and city and county managers and they have delivered an efficient service. Local authority workers have become used to the system and it has allowed staff to be used in other areas of local authority service delivery. It is important that they are able to serve and be of value to the people who ultimately pay the piper, namely, citizens. From that point of view this change has to be a good thing.

We are taking on board the point made by Senator McDowell about Killarney and his trip there. He made a very good point, not only about justice and defence but across a range of Departments and agencies. There is a range of payment systems. I recently looked at the number of different forms of leave within the Civil Service and standardising that alone will take time. It is not as if we are trying to cut out anything. The changes are being introduced by way of agreement with representatives. This is not something that we are unused to.

When one talks about the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform in general, people are keen to see how much money has been saved rather than looking at the efficiencies that have been delivered. The next phase of reform in that Department might not get the same amount of air time as pay deals and other such matters but it is about the intricacies of how one delivers civil and public service reform in order that Joe and Mary Public can see a better and more enhanced service. We are not going to go off and recruit tens of thousands of people. This will not be a HSE because it already exists. It is not a quango.

The NSSO will require specialist staff. Both HR and payroll expertise will be required but that is not an exhaustive list. I hope to see this approach being replicated in other areas as well. I cannot remember who raised the point but there is no reason not to replicate this approach in education. A "Prime Time Investigates" report was carried out on HR in the education area. There is no reason this cannot become a template for other areas of public expenditure and that they cannot be encouraged to share services because by so doing one would have increased levels of oversight and also increased levels of accountability if the system is established according to proper foundations and precedent. There was never any intention to exclude the Committee of Public Accounts. I accepted amendments on Committee Stage in the Dáil debate. I am pleased that was noted because they made sense but they did not change the construct or tenet of the Bill, which was very clear.

I laboured the point both in the committee and in the Dáil about the expenditure of board members that to have a statutory agency where a joint committee of the Oireachtas would set payments would grind this institution to a halt. One could not have a situation where an Oireachtas committee would decide that, for example, Patrick O'Donovan is worth €5,000 and someone else thinks he might be worth €15,000 or whatever else. Ultimately, the Public Appointments Service and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform have a role, as has the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform. If we are to set rates of pay for non-governmental organisations and statutory boards in committees then one could say good luck to new politics achieving anything because we would not do anything other than striking rates of pay and that would grind the entire system to a halt. There has never been a precedent for it and it would also establish a very dangerous precedent for politicians to set the rates of pay for anybody. I do not think anybody would think that is a good idea.

In terms of Citizens Information, I agree with the point made that there is a precedent for other agencies and Departments to do exactly the same thing.I welcome the good wishes of Members. We are certainly open for business should Departments believe that further improvements could be made. We are not in the business of tendering out the work. It is important to point out that all the staff of the national shared services office, NSSO, in situ are civil servants. That will continue. We do not see the staffing of the NSSO being put out to tender in the way that a road building contract is put out to tender. The NSSO is subject to the requirements of the Office of the Data Commissioner. NSSO is also fully compliant with EU data management regulations. We are sensitive to the data of the people who work for the Government. The Government does not want the data of its employees shared in an inappropriate fashion. I will bring forward legislation in the autumn on how data is used and managed properly.

The purpose of the Bill is to make life easier for the civil or public servant to access the services they need, be it sick pay, holidays or widow's payments. It is working at present, but it is also about driving efficiency. This is not a quango, but a means of reducing the numbers involved in the functions of Departments that had no boundaries. Senator McDowell alluded to his experience as Minister in the then Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, and he probably saw it at first hand. There are no boundaries and I hope that as the legislation beds down, accountability will take shape. As the Oireachtas joint committees, the Committee of Public Accounts and the Comptroller and Auditor General see the efficiencies and the level of accountability of the NSSO, we should extend its boundaries. The concept on which the Bill is based, and which I hope will be enacted, is correct and either my successor or I could be back looking to amend it. By enacting the Bill, we will make it statutory and thus make the NSSO accountable. It is correct to give people certainty because they are civil servants. It is the right thing to do to drive efficiency and for the public. It is also the right thing to do in terms of civil servants who want to have a central point of contact for information on their personal situation, or somebody on their team.

I commend the Bill. I propose to take Committee Stage later in the week.