Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the Chamber and thank him for taking this Commencement matter. It is appreciated.

Many good people work in local authorities. They are very proud to work in them and they give great service to the State. When negative comments are made, either in these Houses or elsewhere, about local authorities and public servants and what they do, it tarnishes all those who work in the public service. I have spoken to a number of people working at different levels in local authorities across the country seeking their views on what the Government can do to support them. I will set out essentially what they came back to me with.

Difficult workers exist and that is as true in the private sector as it is in the public sector. The difficulty in local authorities is that it is extremely difficult to sanction an employee. The disciplinary procedure is so cumbersome and ineffective that it is only used in the most clear-cut cases such as those involving gross misconduct.What are much more common are the ongoing and more difficult-to-detect issues, such as those associated with bullying behaviour, disrupters, leaders who lead in a very negative way, manipulators and general underperformance. It is no secret that many of the most difficult employees in local authorities receive a great deal of support from their unions. Unions have their purposes but one of those should be to work with HR departments to tackle bullying, underperformance and other behaviours that undermine the efforts to deliver effective and efficient local authority services. Their role should not be to defend cases of bullying and underperformance because that affects those who make a complaint because they feel they have been bullied or that there has been underperformance.

These issues can continue generally unchecked. When other workers see the behaviours in question are allowed, it affects morale and performance across the board. It is the responsibility of the line managers, in the first instance, to address these issues, but most line managers now know that this is a waste of time, that they are unlikely to get any support from HR and that if they do manage to get a warning added to someone’s record, it is removed within 12 months. Most of the really troublesome individuals are discreet in their actions and smart enough to navigate the disciplinary procedure.

I have many examples of where managers have not been able to do anything. The likely outcome of their actions is arrival of a mediator a few weeks later. They go through the motions and, a few months later, nothing has changed.

A simple thing that could be done but which the unions would probably be against and would not like would be to allow line managers to move staff within their organisation. This would give some control back. The very threat of being moved would be significantly effective.

HR departments have a very difficult job. I know of cases where they put in an awful lot of effort with intent to dismiss only for the employee’s legal representatives to pick holes in some procedural inconsistencies between one local authority and another, the result being that the cases ultimately got dropped. This is exceedingly demoralising for HR departments.

I see merit in a central HR task force whose role would be to monitor the performance of HR departments nationwide and tackle, at national level, roadblocks to progress, such as unions supporting people who have been accused of bullying or of not performing well. It would also take the most difficult cases from local authority HR departments. Many of the staff in the HR sections of local authorities know the individuals they are dealing with very well. It is extremely difficult for the HR staff to manage these cases at local level. Legal professionals could be part of the task force, their function being to offer HR-specific legal advice to local authorities.

These are requests from people in local authorities who are demoralised because they are being lumped in with people who are underperforming. It is very unfair. The Government needs to be able to support those who are performing so they can have a good profession in the service they like.