Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 4 Oct 2005

Vol. 606 No. 3

Leaders’ Questions.

Mr. Kenny

It is well known the Taoiseach has a history of signing blank cheques. The latest episode of the blank cheque written for the PPARS system is his most spectacular to date, at least of those we know about. I expect many Government members will say they know little about the PPARS system. The personnel, payroll, and related systems software project was set up in 1998 with a budget of €9 million, to be completed in three years. Seven years later the project has already cost €150 million. Some €70 million of that was paid to consultants and I understand that €50 million of that €70 million was paid to one consultancy firm.

What has the public got for its €150 million? We have a system that applies only to 37,000 staff members out of 130,000. It has not been rolled out nationally among the staff to whom the PPARS system applies. There has been widespread dissatisfaction with the system, as announced today by the Irish Nurses Organisation. This system paid one member €1 million in error, and consistently made overpayments to other members for several weeks. In the flagship hospital, St. James's, which has been involved in PPARS from the outset, the chief executive has indicated that his hospital does not want to continue with the project as it threatens the hospital's basic functioning, its credibility and its relationships with its workforce.

I have two questions for the Taoiseach and his Government. First, how the hell did the Government spend €150 million on this botched project and how did he as Taoiseach, with three Ministers for Health and Children over the past seven years, preside over this scandalous episode of Government incompetence? Second, who does he hold responsible for this debacle and what action does he propose to take on it?

The Taoiseach

I will just touch on some of the issues. The PPARS system started off first in the mid 1990s when the health boards decided they needed a better payroll system because they did not even know how many people were working for them at the time. They looked at setting up a payroll system for a number of the health boards at the time and the estimated cost was €9 million or €10 million. Early estimates changed over the three-year period from 1998 to 2000 to €17 million. The highly respected Hay organisation undertook a full appraisal and review of the level of investment that would be required to finish the project properly, during its transition from a payroll system to a whole human resource management system that would be unlike what was envisaged or presented at the outset. The initial payroll system became a system dealing with personal information, pension payments, recruitment, time management and rostering. It became an entirely different system. The Deputy's suggestion that the projected cost of the system increased from €10 million to €150 million is erroneous and unfair and should not be entertained.

Mr. Allen

Does the system work?

The Taoiseach

The Hay organisation estimated that it would cost €95 million to do the job.

Mr. Howlin

The Taoiseach is using the Bart Simpson defence.

The Taoiseach

We are talking about a payroll of €7 billion and a total number of staff of approximately 140,000.

Mr. English

He cannot defend it.

The Taoiseach

The Hay organisation said that a reduction in absenteeism would lead to savings of €56 million per annum. After two or three years, therefore, the savings would be worth more than the entire cost of the system.

Mr. McGinley

Does the system work?

The Taoiseach

The organisation also suggested that the system would lead to a reduction in staff turnover and would facilitate cost avoidance systems. The health boards tried to pull all of this together. An international IT consultancy group, Gardner, was commissioned in July 2004 to examine where the project was then. The group's report indicated that although spending was in line with the level outlined by the Hay organisation three years earlier, the costs were rising. The Gardner group wrote to the project team outlining some of these issues. The reality is that the system being put in place to replace the payroll system was quite complex because it dealt with many matters relating to 140,000 members of staff and a payroll of €7 billion. The Hay organisation pointed out that if the system had been put in place correctly for €150 million, it would be a ten-year system dealing with approximately €70 billion. If it had worked correctly, that would have been fine. Unfortunately, just 40,000 of the 140,000 health service personnel have been brought under the system. It has been suggested that it would cost €55 million to finish the system by the end of March 2006. I know the sums sometimes come as a problem to Deputy Kenny——

Mr. Durkan

The Taoiseach should know about sums being a problem.

The Taoiseach

——but it was never intended that the system would cost €10 million.

Mr. Kenny

At least I did not falsify my degree.

The Taoiseach

The cost of the system, as envisaged by the Hay organisation in 2001, was €95 million. Some €116 million was spent up to the end of last year. It would cost another €55 million, more than €20 million of which would be a staff cost, to finish the system in its entirety. Unfortunately, if 100 people work on a system, one must pay them. That might be a difficulty for Fine Gael, but on this side of the House we believe in paying public servants.

Mr. Durkan

We believe in that too.

Mr. McGinley

The Government believes in paying them €1 million.

An Ceann Comhairle

Allow the Taoiseach to conclude.

Ms O. Mitchell

It is amazing that everything can be blamed on Fine Gael.

The Taoiseach

The system is not finished adequately. Deputy Kenny finished by asking me to state who I feel is responsible for this difficulty. The 11 health boards found that they could not put a payroll system together.

Mr. McGinley

They are gone.

The Taoiseach

Thankfully, the Government established the HSE.

Ms Enright

The system is the same.

The Taoiseach

It is obvious that a single organisation is responsible for ruling the 140,000 staff. A review of the matter is under way in the HSE——

Mr. Allen

It is the same crowd under a different name.

The Taoiseach

——which has a good executive, chairman and chief executive. We have confidence in the HSE.

Mr. F. McGrath

That is more waffle.

The Taoiseach

I would like to make a final point.

Mr. Allen

Is this comedy hour?

The Taoiseach

Deputy Kenny tried to say that it is an IT system. It is not an IT system.

Mr. Allen

It is a system that does not work.

The Taoiseach

It is a human resource system being developed for the entire HSE into the future. A large part of it is working.

Ms Enright

It is not working.

The Taoiseach

The firm in question,Deloitte & Touche, did not get the money just for consultancy. It implemented the system, trained 140,000 staff and tried to put the entire system together. That is what the money was paid for. We should have more honesty. There are difficulties with the system, but we should not have presentations, either here or elsewhere, which are totally dishonest.

Mr. Allen

A donkey is always a donkey.

Mr. Kenny

I have rarely heard such rubbish as the Taoiseach's defence of this system.

The Taoiseach

The Deputy does not like the truth.

Mr. Kenny

He has blamed the consultants, he has blamed the health boards, he has blamed the workers and he has blamed the nurses for not working regular hours.

Ms O. Mitchell

He has blamed Fine Gael.

The Taoiseach

I have not blamed anyone.

Mr. Kenny

He has blamed everybody except the Government. There have been three Ministers for Health and Children — Deputy Cowen, Deputy Martin and Deputy Harney — during the seven years in which the Taoiseach has sat in the Taoiseach's chair. They approved the budget for the system under discussion on an annual basis. They knew of and approved the increases in the Department of Health and Children's capital budget for IT facilities for the various health boards. Although they approved the increases, they are now shedding responsibility for them. It seems that the taps have been turned on in every Department, because a great deal of hand-washing is taking place. It is the same old story. Nobody on the Government side is willing to accept responsibility for anything, but they will dance to the tune of every PR firm in the country when it is necessary to open this, that and the other.

Ms McManus

Hear, hear.

Mr. Kenny

Does the Taoiseach stand over this system? Why was the system not designed with the needs of those who will use it in mind? Can the Taoiseach confirm that contracts were sent out with the tender documentation, saying what the Department had estimated in the first place, what it wanted from the system and the conditions that applied to it? What were the incentives? What were the penalties that were to apply if the system was not delivered on time? Is it not a fact that officials from the Department of Finance, after a single meeting, raised serious concerns about the services being provided by one consultant? They said that if the consultant's focus was to be at the detailed level, the average day rate was inappropriate. The Taoiseach is aware that the average day rate for trainees is between €1,000 and €3,000 per day. That means that the firm in question is paid €70,000per diem. The Taoiseach is standing over that botched system, which deals with just one third of the workforce of the health service, without any sense of responsibility.

Ms O. Mitchell

Shame.

Mr. McGinley

It is like something one would hear at a tribunal.

Mr. Kenny

It is clear what should have happened. There should have been fixed price contracts. Conditions of contract should have been sent out with the tender documentation. Above all, there should have been oversight. The Minister for Health and Children of the day and the Taoiseach as the leader of the Government of the day should have accepted responsibility. None of those things happened, however. The Taoiseach cannot walk away from his responsibility in this regard. He cannot shove it over to Professor Drumm and the HSE. The €150 million spent on it would have delivered a brand new 60-bed hospital. It could have been spent on doubling the home help budget, thereby providing a valuable community service to elderly people and people with disabilities. If the €150 million had been spent where it matters most, it could have been used to make a real difference to waiting lists in accident and emergency departments, for example. The Government should have ensured that it got value for the money provided by the people through their taxes, but instead there has been a shameful waste of taxpayers' money.

Ms O. Mitchell

Hear, hear.

Mr. Kenny

It is even more shameful the Taoiseach and his Government will not accept an iota of responsibility for this debacle, which can be added to the litany of dishonour that has developed during the Administration's seven years in office. The Government prefers to shove responsibility to Professor Drumm and carry on regardless. Its ethics are "get in here and stay in here", but the people have a different view.

Deputies

Hear, hear.

Mr. McGinley

The members of the Government should resign.

The Taoiseach

Deputy Kenny started his contribution by saying that the Government is totally responsible, but he then said we are trying to pass the buck totally. He cannot have it both ways.

Mr. Allen

He is right in both instances.

Mr. Durkan

People know the truth.

Mr. F. McGrath

The Taoiseach has given us some more waffle.

The Taoiseach

The HSE is conducting a review of the system, as planned and put together over the past seven or eight years, to see whether it is capable within a reasonable cost of providing a modern management system for the health service's 140,000 staff and its annual payroll of €7 billion. The details of just 40,000 staff have been placed on the system to date. It has been estimated that a further €55 million will be required to complete the project. That the HSE is trying to use a manual system and a computerised system at the same time has caused a large part of the problem. The huge variations between the systems in place in the 11 health boards which were brought together to form the HSE has led to this problem. It has not yet proved possible to solve that in an easy way. The system was evaluated. It is incorrect for the Deputy to say it was not evaluated properly in the first place. The ICT system in question——

Ms Burton

The Taoiseach said earlier that it is not an IT system.

The Taoiseach

——was procured following an EU tendering process and international evaluations.

Ms Burton

He said it a few minutes ago.

The Taoiseach

I would like to respond to Deputy Kenny. The system was extended considerably after the procurement process was completed. The Hay report stated that considerable savings could accrue if the system could be made to work. Modern organisations require top-class systems. The system in question is used here by several multinational businesses.

Mr. English

What did it cost them?

The Taoiseach

However, because of the enormous number of grades — there are close to 26,000 coded grades across the health service — it is simply not compatible with what they are doing. Last October and again this year, the Health Service Executive, with officials of the Department of Finance, stated several times through the news media that it was reviewing the system. It does not intend to dump the system; it is reviewing it to see whether it can find another way to add the remaining numbers. It is a major problem that requires a modern single system that can deal with the payroll for 140,000 staff. Nobody will dump on the HSE. The Government will work with the HSE to try to improve the health service.

Mr. Allen

The Taoiseach is passing the buck to it.

The Taoiseach

I remind Members that when we raised issues of accountability in this House during the establishment of the HSE, it was those on the other side of the House who said there was too much accountability. We will work with the HSE to deal with this system so that we achieve a modern organisation, properly constituted, with 140,000 staff, and spending €7 billion per annum. We will continue with that process. Nobody will walk away from it.

Mr. J. O’Keeffe

What about the Minister, Deputy Harney, or the former Minister, Deputy Martin?

Mr. McGinley

The Government could use the voting machines. They might do better.

Ms McManus

The Taoiseach suggested the technology is not to blame. I accept there is probably nothing wrong with the PPARS technology. The problem is with the implementation of the technology, which is the Taoiseach's responsibility. No matter how much he wriggles and tries to avoid and evade his responsibility, it is his responsibility. He and the Government are responsible for gross incompetence and for squandering millions of euro in the health service that is desperately needed elsewhere. Regrettably, it is not just the PPARS system that is not working. When we consider the record of his appointed Minister for Health and Children after 12 months, it is clear she is not working either.

I invite the Taoiseach to examine the analysis of the 12 month record of the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children which the Labour Party published today. She promised to deal with the accident and emergency crisis; it is now worse than ever. She promised 30,000 full medical cards; not one of those cards has been issued. She promised 200,000 general practitioner only cards, which were to be provided last April; not one of those cards has been issued. During her term of office, every piece of accountability has been stripped out of the health service. We cannot even get an answer to a Parliamentary Question.

Mr. Stagg

Hear, hear.

Mr. J. O’Keeffe

The Government passes the buck.

Ms McManus

At local level, people are making decisions about the lives of others yet they are not accountable to anybody in any democratic sense. That is the record of the Minister for Health and Children appointed by the Taoiseach. Old folks in nursing homes, waiting for the money which was robbed from them, are told they will have to wait until next year, despite previously being told they would get it this autumn. Despite all the urgency expressed with regard to the Leas Cross issue, when the Taoiseach and Tánaiste were going to do the devil and all, what has happened? Nothing has happened. The legislation is not in place to deal with the central issues in the health service.

When will the Taoiseach get his act together? When will the Government stop squandering money and appoint somebody who can do the job to the position of Minister for Health and Children?

The Taoiseach

I reiterate that Professor Drumm and his colleagues have worked for some months in consultation with the Department of Finance to examine the difficulties with trying to bring a full system to fruition. The correspondence between them is available under freedom of information legislation and is in the public domain.

Mr. J. O’Keeffe

This is after eight years of Fianna Fáil-PD Government.

The Taoiseach

The system was not implemented until 2002. The HSE is endeavouring to solve this. Whether it is exactly this system or an alternative system, or the system that applies to 40,000 staff, with some change to the system for the other 100,000 staff, it is vital a coherent system is found. The HSE has used an EU evaluation system and the best consultants in the country — the Hay organisation and others — to try to achieve this.

Mr. J. O’Keeffe

Who was in charge before Professor Drumm?

The Taoiseach

It continues to do that.

With regard to medical cards, funding was provided this year to allow the HSE to introduce 30,000 additional medical cards and income assessment guidelines to assess these medical cards.

Mr. Stagg

The cards were not introduced. There is none. There is a savage review of existing cards.

The Taoiseach

The negotiations with the Irish Medical Organisation have been completed. The Department and the HSE are reviewing the operation of the income assessment guidelines. Funding has been provided to allow the HSE to introduce 200,000 new GP visit cards. The issues that delayed this process, of which the House is well aware, were successfully clarified and finalised last week, on 29 September. There is now agreement on all of the issues. The HSE will continue to produce the cards. As the House knows, if we had issued the cards without finding industrial relations agreement——

Ms Lynch

You did.

The Taoiseach

——the House would complain about that. The Tánaiste has continued all this year to implement the ten-point plan for accident and emergency services. Most of those initiatives are well under way. All of them are assisting in improving accident and emergency services in hospitals throughout the country. An improvement is apparent in many accident and emergency departments in regard to infrastructure as well as staffing, consultant cover and nurses cover. I accept that problems remain in some of the accident and emergency departments. The Government, the Tánaiste and I are committed to working with the HSE and voluntary hospitals to try to improve those issues.

On the legislation to enable payment to those who are entitled to a refund of funding, we have given a commitment on that. The necessary process to get that system in order is under way. Legislation will be passed and we will make those payments as soon as possible.

Ms McManus

That was a pretty lacklustre statement of confidence in the Minister for Health and Children. The Taoiseach has still not dealt with the issues with regard to the record of the past 12 months. The Taoiseach and the Tánaiste could have issued 30,000 full medical cards six to nine months ago. Once they made that announcement and allocated the funding, members of the public could have had access to their doctor because they would have been covered by a medical card. It would not require any industrial relations negotiations. Those cards have still not issued to people who are on low incomes and in desperate need of them.

The Taoiseach and the Minister for Health and Children are responsible for that. However, nothing the Taoiseach said explains to the public how it is that the money is still in the coffers instead of out there, helping people to access health care. The Taoiseach should explain this to all the families who cannot afford to go to the chemist to get medication or go to the doctor when their children are sick. How is it that the Taoiseach is denying people access to health care when they need it and when we have one of the richest economies in the world? It is an extraordinary indictment of the Government. Nothing the Taoiseach said gives any confidence to the public that he knows anything about the needs of the health service and patients.

The Taoiseach

I stated that funding had been provided and that the income assessment guidelines used to assess medical card applications had been increased by 7.5% to achieve 30,000 additional cards. New cards are being issued every day.

Mr. Stagg

As well as those being cancelled, the net figure is nil.

The Taoiseach

Some people have moved beyond the income guidelines. If salaries increase, some are no longer entitled to cards and do not get them. However, those who are entitled to cards get them. That is how the system has always worked.

Some 1,149,000 people are covered by medical cards, a situation which improves day by day. Moreover, the Tánaiste has made changes never before made by any Minister for Health and Children. If the Deputy wants me to give glowing praise to the Tánaiste, I certainly will, because she introduced the changes on child care——

Ms Lynch

What changes?

The Taoiseach

——on mortgages and on net pay.

Dr. Twomey

What changes on child care?

Mr. Stagg

We did not hear about them.

Ms Enright

I missed that press conference.

The Taoiseach

These changes were very helpful. They allow people who would not have got them before to get medical cards. The Deputies protest because they do not like to see excellent reforms introduced by the Tánaiste to improve the net position of people on medical cards. The Tánaiste has achieved that.

Mr. J. Higgins

Last week the Taoiseach said Irish Ferries was engaged in sharp practice in sacking 543 trade union workers and replacing them with exploited labour from eastern Europe. Was that not utterly empty lip-service from him as in the past 12 months it has emerged that his Government gave millions of euro to the same company, Irish Ferries, in redundancy grants to do exactly the same thing to 150 workers on the MV Normandy? Can the Taoiseach explain the difference? Where was his indignation then?

The conditions sought by Irish Ferries for their new workers can only be described as semi-bonded labour. They will slave for 84 hours per week, work for months on end with no break and eat and sleep in their workplace — the ship — for €3.50 per hour. That is a mere €3.50 more than the galley slaves of ancient Rome except, I am sure, if we were around in those days, the galley bosses would have saved us guff about obeying workers' rights. The reality is the naked greed evident here for profit from exploited labour places the moral standards of the likes of Irish Ferries somewhere between those of a slum landlord and a slave trader. Yet we are told 95% of all ships in and out of Irish waters have so-called contracted out labour.

Why are ships flying banana boat flags of convenience allowed to ply EU waters with impunity after all the Taoiseach's talk of social charters, workers' rights and the rest of it during, for example, recent referenda? Is the answer that the policy of European big business, supported by governments like the Taoiseach's, is that migrant labour is there to be abused as is happening in front of the Taoiseach's eyes in the construction industry, the meat industry and in many other industries in order to maximise profit?

Has IBEC — the bosses' organisation — not been exposed as the biggest, most blatant user of all flags of convenience called social partners when it obviously has no allegiance to it in backing Irish Ferries to the hilt? Will the Taoiseach introduce legislation to break this cycle of exploitation? Will it be a matter of urgency in this Dáil? Will the Taoiseach bring it to Europe to break the exploitation now rampant in European Union waters of vulnerable workers?

The Taoiseach

I dealt with this last week. As the Deputy knows, the flag of convenience has been used on the seas generally for many decades. It has been exploited far beyond Irish Ferries. In fact, Irish Ferries made the point to its workforce for the past number of years that it was one of the few companies not engaged in this practice and the reason it was arguing about its cost base was that so many others were engaged in this practice. This practice has been engaged in for a long time on the open seas. I do not know when it started but it certainly was not in recent decades.

On 19 September Irish Ferries announced it had offered a voluntary severance package to 543 of its seafaring employees on its Irish Sea services between Dublin and Holyhead and Rosslare and Pembroke. An offer was made to any employees who wished to stay on. As the Deputy said, under those offers, there was a voluntary redundancy package of up to eight weeks' pay per year of service, including two weeks' statutory pay provided there was agreement with the company. Last week I said we were looking at the legalities of that. We raised it and we will talk to the trade union about it because if some people go, we must be careful we do not create difficulties for individual employees as well.

The objection I have with the company is that it said it would replace these departing staff with crew from an agency employing cheaper eastern European personnel which many others on the seas do. The Government believes in an Irish labour context the action Irish Ferries took was sharp practice and totally unacceptable. The Deputy quoted me correctly in that regard.

The national implementation body met last week and welcomed the invitation by the chairman of the Labour Court to the parties to meet separately in informal and exploratory talks. It recommended the parties respond positively to the court's invitation. I welcome the fact the company and the unions met at the Labour Court yesterday and I urge all the parties to co-operate with the industrial relations machinery of the State because that is how this issue will be dealt with.

For the Deputy's information, the preliminary advice received from the Attorney General as to whether a statutory redundancy situation exists was that on the basis of the information available it may not fall within the definition of the Redundancy Payments Acts. No formal communication as yet has been received from Irish Ferries, so the discussions go on.

If there is a requirement for changes to legislation in this regard, obviously the relevant Department will look at some of the issues arising. However, we have made our points very clearly to IBEC which I think accepts them, as does the company. The Deputy knows the impracticality of saying these companies which face change and opposition should never make anyone redundant. The reality is we are in a situation where normal industrial relations are being followed, which I welcome. We should leave the discussions to take place where they rightly should, that is, in the Labour Court.

Mr. J. Higgins

So-called normal industrial relations means the Labour Court. In the case of the MV Normandy, the Labour Court, if I might paraphrase it, said flags of convenience are all the rage and it could do nothing about it. It recommended that the deal had to be accepted. It was exactly the same thing. Some 150 workers on trade union rates of pay and conditions were replaced by cheap, agency labour. That is what happened on the MV Normandy and the Taoiseach’s Government paid millions of euro to supplement that. What is the difference? Will the Taoiseach explain it when he responds?

The Taoiseach said flags of convenience have been used for many decades. That is an indictment of his Government and his fellow governments in the European Union. It shows ship workers that they must rely on their own strength. Should they not fight this campaign to drag down their wages and conditions with effective strike action to paralyse companies like Irish Ferries until they agree to continue to employ workers on trade union rates of pay and decent working conditions? When ship workers in France and other countries face the same thing, should they not join together with them to ensure it happens?

Where does this leave the concept of so-called partnership? Why should workers have any sense of belief that bosses who do this type of thing to them are their partners? In what sense can they be said to be their partners? When the Taoiseach said IBEC and Irish Ferries "now accept", is he saying they have accepted they will not sack those 543 workers? Have they given him that assurance?

The Taoiseach

I am trying to help to resolve a situation in Irish Ferries and not to create a problem in other companies. Government policy has always been that Irish seafaring employment is maximised for its own sake so that Ireland can develop and grow its maritime sector. The loss of significant Irish seafaring employment in Irish Ferries would be a significant blow. That is why we are trying to avoid that happening. We need to ensure matters are progressed in a manner that does not lead to disruption of transport services. I do not think the Deputy is serious but if he believes closing the seas of Europe would, in some way, help the Irish workforce, he has another think coming to him.

On the Deputy's last point, the very fact there is social partnership means we can engage with workers and employers. If we went back to the old way, we know what would happen. They would just close, there would be nobody to talk to and they would move on. The fact social partnership is in place means workers can use it as a basis to get——

Mr. J. Higgins

It is a sham.

Mr. F. McGrath

Texting "Questions and Answers".

The Taoiseach

It is not a sham. The old days when the Deputy was inciting people to such actions was when we had high unemployment and high emigration. While sometimes I feel the Deputy is joking, other times I feel he honestly believes that going back to 20% unemployment rates and high emigration is progress.

Mr. J. Higgins

What has that got to do with it?

The Taoiseach

It has much to do with it. Social partnership addressed this and moved us away from the old rant that the Deputy and others had 20 years ago.

Mr. J. Higgins

Would the Taoiseach work under the same conditions?

The Taoiseach

We went down the tubes when we followed that line. It was when we turned that around that we made this country a success. Talk about closing down the Irish seas and stopping exports from exiting is the most stupid thing I have heard Deputy Joe Higgins say in a long time.

Mr. J. Higgins

Proper union rates must be paid and conditions must be good.

The Taoiseach

These matters are nonsense. The Deputy should be advising those who listen to him, although they are not many, that social partnership is right and that they should be engaged and active in it.

Mr. B. Smith

Hear, hear.

Mr. Allen

Time to hoist the Jolly Roger.