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Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 20 May 2008

Vol. 654 No. 4

OECD Report on Public Service Reform: Statements.

Is ceart go bpléfí sa Dáil an tuarascáil thábhachtach ón Eagras um Comhpháirtíocht agus Forbairt Eacnamaíochta faoin tseirbhís phoiblí. Tá tionchar láidir ag an tseirbhís phoiblí i ngach tír, ar shaol an phobail agus ar a stádas eacnamaíochta. Léiríonn tuarascáil an OECD go bhfuil seirbhís phoiblí láidir agus fiúntach againn agus go bhfuil dul chun cinn mór déanta againn leis na mblianta, ó thosnaíomar ar athnuachan an chórais riaracháin. Is léir ón tuarascáil go bhfuil níos mó le déanamh chun a chinntiú go bhfuil seirbhís phoiblí den chéad scoth againn chun freastail ar phobal ilghnéitheach na linne seo. Ní mór dúinn, ach go háirithe, féachaint chuige go bhfuil na Ranna Stáit agus na heagrais phoiblí uile dírithe ar aidhmeanna polasaithe poiblí agus freagrach as an teacht amach a chruthaítear. Tugann tuarascáil an OECD treoir dúinn, conas is féidir an chéad dul chun tosaigh eile sa seirbhís poiblí a eagrú. Tá mé sásta go dtugann an tuarascáil, bonn suntasach dúinn chun straitéis cuimsitheach a chur i bhfeidhm. Is ceart cinnireacht na seirbhíse poiblí agus saineolas ón gcóras ghnó phríobháideach a thabhairt le chéile chun é sin a dhéanamh. Mar sin, tá mé ag cur os comhair na Dála inniu ainmneacha an ghrúpa atá á chur ar bun agam chun moltaí a ullmhú ar chonas is fearr tuarascáil an OECD a chur i bhfeidhm.

I welcome the opportunity to commence this debate on the OECD's report on its review of the public service. The report, Towards an Integrated Public Service, marks the culmination of 16 months of work by the OECD, which involved intensive analysis and extensive consultation. Members of the Oireachtas were consulted in their roles as chairs of a number of committees, members of such committees and party spokespersons. This substantive report is widely recognised as an authoritative assessment of the current state of the public service. It has been accepted as such by the Government. The OECD has outlined in depth the strengths of our current system. More importantly, it has outlined the disconnects and challenges that must be addressed if the public service is to meet the needs and expectations of our citizens. The OECD acknowledges that the public service is on a sound path of modernisation. It believes that our relatively small public sector has contributed to our competitive advantage. However, it acknowledges that there is an insufficient focus on performance that delivers outcomes in line with the needs of citizens. It correctly categorises our public service reform process as being inward-facing and overly focused on processes and procedures, without sufficiently demonstrating that it is driven by the complex and diverse needs of citizens or focused on making a difference to the quality of their lives.

The OECD's main recommendation is that we should think about the public service as a more integrated system. An integrated public service means getting people in the various parts of the system to work in a more consistent, co-ordinated and networked way across traditional sectoral and organisational boundaries. It does not necessarily mean changing the structure of the public service or changing the existing number of offices or agencies. It involves ensuring that Departments, offices and agencies interact with each other in new ways and providing for integrated action in policy making, delivery and implementation. It will require greater pooling and sharing of information, data and resources, a common pursuit of objectives and greater governance of State agencies, offices and bodies under the aegis of Departments.

The report recognises the value of the extensive reform efforts which have been undertaken to date in areas like customer service, e-Government, human resources, financial management and better regulation. The positive results of the change and reform programme in the quality customer service area can be seen by citizens. Management and organisational reforms introduced via the performance management development system have resulted in better functioning individual organisations. The OECD recognises that the dividend from many of these reforms will be fully harvested as they become increasingly embedded. Having said that, the OECD clearly believes we can and should do better. Despite the significant improvements and reforms which have been introduced, many challenges remain. The past decade has seen increases in public service expenditure and employee numbers. Expectations for improved service delivery, greater efficiency and better performance from our public service have increased. The OECD has indicated that if we can sequence future reforms in a better way, we can improve performance and service delivery and achieve greater efficiencies. Many of the reform initiatives which have been introduced to date have focused largely on the Civil Service, which comprises just one tenth of the public sector, as opposed to the broader public service.

The public sector is required to review its systems, processes and procedures continuously to ensure they are responsive and efficient. The public service needs to provide high quality services which represent value for money. Citizens need to be sure the public service will deliver the services they expect when needed, where needed and as needed. The OECD has clearly highlighted the need to put the public at the centre of our public services. The public service modernisation process needs to deliver results that are clear, useful and verifiable to the user. A number of initiatives which are in place are addressing many of the challenges identified in the OECD report. I intend to pursue a comprehensive programme of renewal which integrates these initiatives and moves us towards a world-class public service that is equipped to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow.

I am pleased to inform this House that today I am appointing a task force to develop an action plan for the public service to report to Government before the end of the summer. This task force will be chaired by the Secretary General to the Government. Its membership will include four external members: Mark Ryan, country managing director, Accenture; John Moloney, group managing director, Glanbia plc; Breege O'Donoghue, director, Penneys Primark; and Paul Haran, principal, College of Business and Law, UCD; as well as four Secretaries General, the Secretary General responsible for public service management at the Department of Finance and the Secretaries General of the Departments of Health and Children, the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and Education and Science.

The terms of reference of the task force are to prepare for consideration by Government a comprehensive framework for renewal of the public service, which takes into account the analysis and conclusions of the OECD report, Towards an Integrated Public Service, as well as the lessons to be drawn from the strategic management initiative, the organisational review programme, and the efficiency review process, and to recommend in particular how best to secure an overarching policy for an integrated public service that enables increased flexibility mobility and staff development, supports the competencies and practices necessary for new network ways of working within and across the broad public service; and how to secure the basis for determining the contribution which a senior public service could make to an integrated and cohesive public service.

The task force is also being asked to outline a set of criteria to inform the way in which the business of Government is structured and organised, with a strategy to enable necessary changes to be planned and implemented successfully; and the benefits of greater use of shared services across all sectors of the public service. One example of successful shared services currently in operation is the Killarney financial shared services centre. It provides financial services for the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform and eight other client organisations, including my Department. The task force is also being asked to outline an appropriate framework for the establishment and operation and governance of State agencies. In this regard, the OECD recommends putting in place a formal performance dialogue between Departments and agencies and the Department of Finance. This would entail a process of setting different types of targets and evaluation, and making links between inputs, processes, outputs and outcomes.

Furthermore, the task force is being asked to develop a strategy by which e-Government delivers coherent and citizen-focused services and more closely supports greater efficiency in administrative processes; and an implementation plan, specifying the tasks and responsibilities necessary for the successful implementation of the renewal agenda, including the ways in which the principle of partnership with public servants and their representatives will be applied. The task force will complete its work by the end of the summer and I look forward to its report.

Change and transformation has become a way of life in the private and public sector. The key skill is no longer managing a steady state, it is about managing and sustaining change. These skills need to be embedded into the service at all levels. A key principle is that leadership is needed at all levels, not just at the top. Any change programme must be clearly articulated in simple language and must be explainable in a clear road map with identified programme outcomes, objectives, priorities, timeline and responsibilities. The plan should be accompanied by a narrative that explains any proposed changes in plain language with the benefits — that is the value to the citizen — and the plan to make it happen. A transformation programme will only be successful if it is led and supported by strong senior leadership. It must also address all the required enablers to deliver sustainable change — policy, processes, people and technology. The change associated with such a programme must address the impacts on key stakeholders within the public service, NGOs and citizens in a structured and planned manner.

I am ambitious for the public service and I know that the public service is ambitious for itself. I want the public service to be an exemplar of success by being fit for purpose, performance focused, integrated and citizen centred. On my election as Taoiseach, I made it clear that I am determined to take decisive action to improve public services. My ambition is for a renewed and flexible public service which can continue to command the respect and confidence of our citizens and taxpayers. With the appointment of the task force today, I am taking the first of many steps to deliver on that commitment.

I wish to share time with Deputy Bruton.

Is that agreed? Agreed.

It is a bit like the drainage in the Shannon — there is nothing new in this and there has been talk about public service reform for a very long time. This did not begin with the publication of the OECD report on the public service. It has been a constant revolving issue from the 1960s and the landmark Devlin report followed by many reports, reviews, recommendations and strategies since.

The Taoiseach has always been fond of referring to the need to develop better outcomes for our citizens, a concept everybody shares. In reviewing this matter he would do well to read of the Delivering Better Government report which was produced by the rainbow Government in 1996. The then Taoiseach, former Deputy John Bruton, said that "a more results and performance oriented civil service is essential". There are some brilliant people in the public service. There is considerable frustration in the service because of structures that have been established, which block many people and prevent them from giving of their best. Under the heading, Achieving the Vision, the document made the point that "in order to deliver the greater professionalism, the openness and flexibility, the quality and customer orientation and the results and outcome focus required, a significant change must take place", which is self-explanatory.

I welcome the OECD report and its focus on outcomes, increasing the pace of reform, a more integrated public service, better networking, greater flexibility and mobility. Many of these concepts are not new and have been around for some time. Many of them were flagged in that report in 1996. If one were to characterise or summarise the conclusions of the OECD report, it would be as "significant room for improvement". The main flaws identified by the OECD was the paradox of a small country with a highly fragmented public service, with barriers to the movement of people, skills and experience, which make it difficult to reallocate resources from declining to emerging priorities. There are dead-end units in many Departments where people cannot transfer and there is not the flexibility one would normally require.

Without significant reform, the OECD warned that decentralisation would lead to further fragmentation. Deputy Bruton has carried out an extensive analysis of this issue over the years. There is a weak management and performance culture, from Ministers down, whereas performance should be key. When we had the privilege of being appointed as Ministers I remember the then Taoiseach recommending that we should decide on three or four priorities in our Departments and go after them because if we did not do so we would get buried in the trenches of the Department and never be seen again. It was good advice and I am sure the Taoiseach has given similar advice to his newly appointed Ministers.

The OECD also criticised the habit of creating new agencies. Deputy Varadkar pointed out almost 1,000 quangos nationally for every problem. Some 200 new quangos have been created since 1997, which is one for every Dáil sitting week. Some of them have gone into production and we have sons of quangos. The really frustrating thing is that this is not the first time these weaknesses were made self-evident. The PA Consulting report in 2002 came to the same conclusion. Since 2004, when the Taoiseach was Minister for Finance, he has been responsible for solving these problems and ensuring taxpayers' money was well spent, but that has not happened.

In the ten years since the publication of Delivering Better Government the pace of public sector reform, which quickened appreciably during the early to mid-1990s, has slackened off. At a time of abundant resources, the drive to link reform to additional spending was not maintained. Too often soft options were taken — throwing money at a problem, setting up an agency or commission, or asking for another report.

The public service faces many challenges. Our economic success and population growth means that many issues are more complex. Expectations from the public, used to cut-throat competition in certain private sector areas, is higher than ever. Ireland has growing responsibilities and obligations from international bodies such as the EU, the WTO etc. In the past ten years, there has been a significant tendency at Government level to plan for the next election instead of the next generation. Too often, Government focused on immediate and short-term political needs instead of the requirements for the bigger picture and long-term sustainable development.

The OECD report contains many worthwhile and forward-looking recommendations. The dilemma facing the Government, however, is that the opportunity, which the first benchmarking award presented for linking reform to increased remuneration, was missed. The challenge the Government must now face is convincing public servants that reform is not only in the interest of the citizen but also in their own interest. Public servants need to be persuaded that an efficient, effective, well run public service will be a better place to work in, will provide a more rewarding career and will give infinitely greater job satisfaction. Later in the debate, some of my colleagues will touch on specific areas of reform, which we believe are necessary.

I do not want to let the opportunity pass without returning to the importance of citizen-centred or patient-centred services. When an organisation is supposed to be citizen-centred and patient-centred and does not turn out to be that way, it causes a deep-rooted anxiety and negative feeling about "the public service". Ministers are in Government to drive through reform of efficiency where reward for performance is evident and, as a consequence, where there is better efficiency in the public service and much better job satisfaction. The Health Service Executive has in excess of 100,000 employees. It is difficult to unscramble the egg of the HSE. From my experience of dealing with relatively small numbers of HSE staff, I am aware that there are concerned individuals with a vision working in the system but the structures within which they operate create the inability to deliver the service. Public service reform is about giving citizens what they need; response to telephone calls and access to people. Whatever the service, it is important to have a clear agenda and decisiveness of delivery. That is what we all aspire to have.

The Taoiseach is in charge now. I hope when the report comes back before the end of the summer it is realistic and practical and that he will implement it in a realistic way so that there is a return for the taxes people pay in terms of an efficient public service. That is in everybody's interest.

The Taoiseach's initiative today deserves at best one cheer. After 11 years in Government, with responsibility for public services for four years, he has set up a task force to examine public service reform. Not a single initiative has been announced today. That does not indicate a Taoiseach who has thought about the direction of change we must undertake.

I remind the Taoiseach that many of the proposals we now see from the OECD run directly contrary to what he has done as Minister for Finance. Benchmarking provided an opportunity to link public service pay and performance but it was ignored. Again, under the Taoiseach's stewardship of the Department of Finance, top level pay for senior public servants and Ministers came up for review. That was another opportunity to link public sector pay with performance but that opportunity was not seized either. Under the Taoiseach's watch the serious scrutiny that was to emerge from the value for money system established through legislation in 1997 was melted down. That was to involve a three-year rolling programme through which everything would be scrutinised and lessons were to be applied in the way budgets were set. Senior civil servants had to admit that even where that was done, it had no impact on the budget.

Likewise, when the Taoiseach had the opportunity to introduce serious reform of the way the budget was debated in the House he did not do so, he did the exact opposite. He decided to introduce public spending proposals and tax proposals to the House at the one time and without scrutiny, and to have a debate at the end of the process. That is not the way a modern Government committed to public service reform should spend its money. The budget system must hunt down waste and reward performance and when money gets tight it must not hurt the weak and the vulnerable. Even in the past four months, under pressure on public spending, the Government has made the weak and the vulnerable hurt. The Taoiseach is not hunting down waste in public spending. At every hand's turn we see cutbacks in respite care, beds are being closed and small schemes are being economised on as money runs out for people who need support. The process is only starting because there has been no serious effort to find economies in public spending.

Much of what has occurred has been on the Taoiseach's watch. For example, decentralisation was pushed ahead on his watch. We know from the annual conferences of public servants and from the OECD report that that has been a wasteful use of scarce public servant management time, which has not allowed managers to do the job the Taoiseach says is the priority, to deliver at the front line to the customers and the users of public services. Instead, managers' time has been absorbed in what amounts to famine work in many cases, of lining up and trying to decide which agencies will move when we know in our heart of hearts that State agencies are not going to move. That is the reality. After four years the Government has delivered 20% of the decentralisation promised. If that is an omen for how much the Taoiseach will do in terms of public service reform, it is not a good one.

It is worth reminding the Taoiseach to bear in mind some recommendations. We need to develop managerial and leadership capacity. We need a five-year vision for the public service. We need an imaginative service-wide performance system. We need to review the structures to reposition e-Government as a core strategic area delivering services to consumers of public services. We need robust measures of consumer satisfaction and greater input by citizens. Does the Taoiseach recognise those recommendations? They are drawn from a report issued to him before he became Minister for Finance in 2002. That was the tone and direction of the recommendations he had on his desk when he took up office in the Department of Finance as Minister with responsibility for forming budgets and delivering public services. What happened to the recommendations? Six years later the same issues are being presented as the new challenges. A task force has been set up to examine those challenges that the Taoiseach knew about six years ago because they were included in a report he had on his desk when he took office.

That is not good enough. I would have some belief in the Taoiseach's commitment in the area if he intended to introduce initiatives as and from this year's Estimates — for example, that agencies would have to compete for their money and that there would be scrutiny in the Oireachtas before we vote on money; that alternative uses of money would be considered; that we would look for efficiencies in administration in this year's Estimates process to save frontline services; and that quangos and the appointments to State boards would be scrutinised by the Oireachtas so that properly qualified persons would be appointed to those positions.

I would welcome such proposals on a change of direction, but we do not see any such proposals, which is why I am disheartened and fear that what is behind the proposed public sector reform is not a well thought-out strategy based on four years' experience of running the public service. Neither is it apparent that the Taoiseach intends to move in a new direction but that the fragmentation of agencies, which is evident, will combine with the rigidity of the HR management that he drove from the Department of Finance. The report stated the Department of Finance was driving rigidity into a highly fragmented system so they have neither devolution nor delegation with the flexibility to act. It is the worst of all worlds. If I thought a momentum for change was coming I would give the Taoiseach three cheers. I do not have great faith in the proposal to set up a task force with worthies on it. The Taoiseach has 11 years ministerial experience, four of which were in the public service sector. We should see initiatives that would make a difference to the Estimates being formed as we speak. As we come to next year's budget we should see a different type of Estimate, namely, Ministers committing in advance to targets they will achieve with the money we give them, that we will have scrutinised that in advance and will be confident the Ministers can deliver and will be accountable for them. We have got used to not expecting that.

I wish to outline a few examples of big initiatives that were announced by the Taoiseach and his colleagues in the past. We were to deliver complete transformation of the way we dealt with climate change. At least the Minister for Transport had the good grace to announce it was a total failure and that we did not deliver anything. We only delivered 20% of the decentralisation that was promised. At best, only 20% of the 2001 health reform strategy was delivered in terms of primary care centres and the issues the Taoiseach said are so important. I could go on. The spatial strategy is another example of strategies being announced with great commitment by the new time, but there has not been a system for making people accountable and delivering change at political level. That corrodes the system as it filters down. There cannot be performance down the line if people in authority do not take responsibility. I welcome the Taoiseach's rhetorical commitment in this area but I want to see more before I am convinced it will mean something.

Talking about public service reform is a little like attempting to peel a grape; one wonders if the pleasure of eating the grape is worth the effort and time taken to peel it.

Broadly speaking, large elements of our public service function well and the majority of our public servants do very good work. The OECD recognises that a vibrant, functioning public sector underpins economic growth. It also recognises the key role our public service played in Ireland's drive for economic prosperity. The Industrial Development Authority, and latterly the National Treasury Management Agency, are good case studies in that respect.

It is important that we do not forget the significant achievements of the public service and concentrate on planning for more achievements in the future.

We see many people jumping on the bandwagon and looking for any stick with which to beat the public sector. This OECD report is not a stick with which to beat the public sector. It is something of a fillip in terms of the great work part of the public service does and is in many ways a manifesto, even if the language is somewhat difficult to grasp, for the comprehensive renewal the public service needs to go that extra mile for the new Ireland of today after the years of economic expansion and now facing an uncertain period of containment and even faltering growth.

We want a modern, responsive and citizen focused public service. Reform must not be a euphemism for cutbacks or a Trojan horse for a neo-liberal agenda where the only way to deal with the public service is to privatise it, outsource it or get rid of it. We need a fundamental renewal of our public service that puts the citizen first. We must renew our public service to make it fit for purpose and fit to serve Ireland in the 21st century.

Many people are taken with the idea of contracting out all public services but it must be borne in mind that regarding services such as security, education and health it is difficult to envisage the quantum of needs of the citizen being fulfilled purely by private sector profit-driven corporations on their own. We do not have a model of that available anywhere in the world. It can happen in rather narrow areas for a period of time but it tends not to happen in a comprehensive way. For example, if all the babies in a country are to be vaccinated, a properly organised and funded public agency will be required to do it. That is the case if we are talking about Ireland, the United States, Scandinavia or the developing world. Public services are and should be an essential feature of any civilised society.

The truth about the Irish public service is that some elements of it are excellent while others cry out for serious change, renewal and reform. Any consideration of public services must restate the obvious — the public service exists to serve the citizens who, having paid their taxes, are entitled as a right to expect reasonable levels of service in key areas such as health, education, security, transport and the environment.

There is no reason public services and public servants here should not welcome the challenge of renewal this report, and a legion of other reports, puts forward as being central. The public service must move on. It must meet the needs of the citizen effectively, efficiently and at a reasonable price.

The private sector has changed a great deal. There was a time when banks did not open at lunch time. It is taken for granted now that not only can one go to one's bank at lunch time but one can avail of banking services on-line. The public service must parallel and follow what is happening in the world of private commerce and industry and also deal with the fact that public services are now judged against a global benchmark.

Some of our young people travel to Australia for a year out and experience a quality public transport system. Older people travel to Lisbon and are amazed at the type of public transport system there. When they return here they wonder why such systems are available in comparable countries, some of which do not have our income levels, but not here.

If we want to be a knowledge-based society, with high level jobs and high earners who are attracted to live here, our country must function well in terms of the services it provides. We do not want some form of gated community where people are gated in their employment and at home because they do not want to be in the ordinary part of that society. If we want to be at the top in terms of economic performance in the private sector, we also need a vibrant, functioning public service.

Much of the public service has responded well to the challenge of modern Ireland. A good example is the Revenue Commissioners, who collect vastly more taxation, upgraded their computer services under a great deal of pressure and, for the past 20 years, engaged in a real and effective form of decentralisation. They did not simply send functions to isolated locations but decentralised large elements of their services and decision making to areas such as the mid-west region. They show that the public service can do that.

Similarly, the country owes a debt to the Trojan work done by teachers and principals in developing areas who have faced not only the challenges of major growths in population and the need to build and manage extra schools but also the huge new immigrant population that must be catered for. In that respect, I read the last case study at the end of the book about school planning. It defeated the authors of the report in that they failed to understand the full dimensions of the challenge. They pulled their punches when it came to the sad lack of performance of the previous Minister for Education and Science and a number of the officials involved in the debacle of school provision. We have ended up with segregated schools which may be the ghettos of the future unless the public service can recognise that from a policy point of view it is counter to our future economic success, and it must be dealt with. The report is useful but it is not perfect.

Decentralisation was a political stroke. It had operated on a much smaller scale but very successfully in the previous ten to 15 year period and was partly initiated when Labour and Fianna Fáil were in Government together. It was a slow and rather expensive process but at that time offering local temporary vacancies in places like Donegal, Sligo and even in Wexford was an enormous economic boost to those areas because the unemployment rate in some areas was well over 20%. It was a tremendous economic fit as well as being innovative.

The problem with the McCreevy report, which the Government must revisit and it is not just a decision for the Civil Service, is that it was a political stroke. Everything was to decentralise all over the place and the consequences of it were that it is incoherent and very destructive, as the OECD report points out, to the collective corporate memory in various Departments. It has resulted in a 90% turnover in some sections. Had the Civil Service been involved in the management of a more modest programme of decentralisation from the beginning, it is quite possible that much more progress would have been made by now, at far less cost than the political stroke undertaken by the former Minister, Mr. McCreevy. Civil servants will be aware that people are being decentralised under what is known as the "hot bedding" system. They are going to various locations to work for two or three days. People are hiring apartments and some use them for the first two or three days of the week and then go back to Dublin or wherever while others take over the flat. It is incredibly costly and certainly not constructive in terms of people's job satisfaction. The Labour Party has said that this needs to be re-audited and reconsidered and an agreed framework arrived at which is not destructive of the Departments and services involved.

I welcome, too, in this report the proposal by the OECD that the charges introduced by Fianna Fáil for applications under the Freedom of Information Act be scrapped. The sole purpose of those charges was to limit applications for information to which the public and the media should be entitled. They should be in a position to analyse what has gone on in terms of Government performance. The suggestion in the report of greater staff mobility and integration between State agencies, local authorities and the public service would be welcomed in principle, I believe, by the majority of public servants, not least some of those interested in decentralisation — or not, as is the case with more than half of them. However, it will be extraordinarily challenging to deliver that type of change, particularly now when finances are tighter. How does someone who has worked in FÁS, for example, for 20 or 30 years transfer to the general public service system and vice versa? I do not know whether consideration has been given to that.

There is also a suggestion about a two-tiered structure of public service — introducing a type of upper management tier that presumably will have its own pay structure — which needs to be watched very carefully. We have seen an extraordinary gulf arising between the pay of the highest and lowest grades in the public service in recent years, including the pension entitlements of the top bosses, which are estimated to be between 10% and 30% of their salary value.

We have had a unified public service in Ireland since the foundation of the State, one that has largely been free of corruption and unified in purpose. If we are to introduce a segregated two-tier system of the generals on the top on super-pay pensions and conditions, with the ordinary foot soldiers at the bottom, on or close to minimum wages, that will have massive implications for the public service. It may be attractive in the short term from a cost-cutting viewpoint, but as with the Garda structure, because this is such a small country there is value in a unified service to which the people working in it owe a duty of loyalty to the citizens and institutions of the State, as opposed to one in which the lower ranks in particular, perceiving themselves to be abused, are dissociated from such a commitment.

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this debate. Discussion of public service reform cannot be used as a euphemism for cuts in the public sector. Past experience has made people justifiably concerned that this is what the Government is really getting at when it speaks of public service reform. A discussion on public service reform is needed, but it must be about how the State can deliver better public services in a more efficient manner and how it is to meet the needs of a growing population at a time when Exchequer revenues are in decline. We need to focus on how wastage and inefficiency can be eliminated and to discuss the type of public services we want. Many people are deeply unhappy with the low tax-low public services model that has been implemented in the past decade in particular. Is this model good for citizens or for the economy or competitiveness? Will it not end up costing us more in the long term?

The OECD report points out that while public expenditure has risen by 5% a year, "much of these increases have reflected a need to play catch-up from historically low levels". Public spending in Ireland is the third lowest in the OECD as a percentage of GDP. Significantly, the OECD report recognises the important role of the public sector in our economic achievements to date. However, we need to look at the best model of public service delivery internationally and learn from this. It is widely recognised that the Nordic countries deliver the most advanced public services. We should see what lessons we can learn from them. A wide-ranging debate is needed because any decision we take now will have implications long into the future. Will the task force the Taoiseach has spoken about look at these issues? A key priority that Sinn Féin and, I believe, the majority of people in the State want is increased quality and capacity within public services.

The population of the State has grown considerably in recent years from just over 3.6 million in 1996 to in excess of 4.2 million by 2006. In some areas, such as the greater Dublin area and the commuter belt, the population growth has been dramatic. Quite simply, public services have not been adequately expanded to meet this increased demand and the pressure is being felt in schools and hospitals in particular. As a result, we continue to have patients on trolleys in our hospitals and pupils taught in overcrowded pre-fabs. Public transport is full to capacity, particularly in urban centres, while rural areas lack proper public transport infrastructure. Social housing output has not been sufficient to meet demands and there are still approximately 43,600 families on housing waiting lists.

Public services such as health and education are not meeting people's needs or expectations. Obviously, achieving increased quality and capacity in public services has to involve getting better value for money in public spending. However, value for money cannot be equated simply with spending less. Well managed short to medium-term social investment will often yield medium to long-term savings to the Exchequer as other direct and indirect costs are reduced. We need to ensure that public money is used effectively to deliver improvements in public services, to deliver better and more efficient public services to meet the needs of all our citizens.

The OECD talks about the need for the public to be at the centre of the service. I do not believe that this is the case at present. Services and how they are delivered are not people centred and for many people this is less than satisfactory. For example, the recruitment ban in the HSE is the type of arbitrary action that takes little account of the impact on the public, which is trying to access the service. It is the kind of action that has long-term implications. The OECD states: "The development of longer term, more strategic budgetary mechanisms covering spending programmes, could contribute to greater certainty for senior management and more efficiency in programme deliver." I believe this is particularly true in respect of the health service. It is the absence of this type of approach that leads to decisions such as the recruitment ban in the HSE and the annual phenomenon of hospitals cancelling procedures and appointments in the last months of the year in order to meet budgetary constraints.

While Sinn Féin by no means agrees with all its recommendations, the OECD in its report on integrated public services has made interesting observations, some of which will not please the Government. It raises serious questions about the implications of the so-called decentralisation process, referred to more accurately by the OECD as administrative relocation. It makes clear that it has the potential to undermine the ability of the State to deliver integrated public services because it makes cross-departmental work more difficult. The reality is that the decentralisation process originated in short-term populist thinking. After all, decentralisation was introduced at the whim of a former Minister for Finance, Charlie McCreevy, without any debate or discussion with the stakeholders, such as trade union representatives, and without consideration of the implications for the future of governance and the public service.

This report highlights the need for the Government to consider again the decentralisation process. For example, we must ask whether we have ever had an accurate assessment of the cost of the process to enable us to determine whether it delivers value for money. With regard to many State agencies, decentralisation simply has not worked and will not work, and should be abandoned before any more money is wasted thereon.

Sinn Féin strongly agrees with the suggestion that devolution of greater powers to local government is required. Many services would be delivered better and more efficiently by local government, as is the practice in many other European states, which have well developed local government systems.

The report touches on the need to empower those who work in management positions within the public service to make decisions and take the initiative. That is important. There is a lot of media hysteria that creates a very negative impression of public sector workers, characterising them as lazy and over-paid. That suggestion is very unfair. Anyone who has interaction with those delivering health care and education can testify how untrue such assertions are. Employees in the public sector, as taxpayers like the rest of us, want to be part of a process that delivers a better and more efficient public service. Improving management practices must be part of this process.

When I began dealing with public servants, particularly after my election to Louth County Council in 1999, the efficiency and competence of some of the senior management staff of the local authority came as an unbelievably pleasant surprise. Like many other members of the public, I had perceived negativity in respect of many public sector workers but one of my first impressions on becoming elected was their competence and ability.

The report is rightly critical of the explosion in Government agencies, the number of which it estimates at 800. As a consequence, it notes "the Public Service remains segmented overall, leading to sub-optimal coherence in policy development, implementation and service delivery". The setting up of so many new agencies concerns many Members of the Dáil. These agencies are, in many cases, not accountable. We cannot obtain answers from the line Minister on the basis that this or that matter falls under the remit of a particular agency. This includes one of the most important agencies, the HSE.

While I appreciate opportunities exist for Oireachtas Members to meet HSE staff, as happened yesterday in my constituency where the four Oireachtas Members attended such a meeting, this is insufficient. While the staff are pleasant people and answer questions occasionally, their doing so is not the same as their being held to account in this House. That is a perfect example of a lack of accountability.

The sooner the HSE is disbanded or replaced, the better. Bad as the former health boards were, they allowed for some political accountability. At least members of local authorities or Members of the Oireachtas had a direct input into them. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case. While one could argue there is a regional forum in place, it does not have anything like the level of accountability that existed when the health boards were in operation. I do not say this with a hankering to return to the health board system — many who had to reflect on and deal with them had a bad experience — but the HSE serves as a good example of how State agencies can get out of hand entirely.

I look forward to further discussion on this matter in the near future and hope the Government will listen to some of the contributions.

The provision of effective, customer-focused, value for money public services is a central aim of the Government. The OECD report we are discussing provides us with a platform for the modernisation of the manner in which we deliver public services to citizens.

By any analysis, our public service has made enormous progress in the past decade. The efficiency and customer service focus of the Revenue Commissioners is one example and the increased integration of special needs education into mainstream education is another.

There have been significant improvements in the internal organisation of Departments and public bodies. Basic changes have been made in the way in which public service pay is determined and staff have accepted real changes in terms and working conditions. The recent introduction of annual output statements, initially in Departments, by my predecessor means that attention can now be focused on the level of delivery provided for citizens by each organisation. The OECD acknowledges the very important contribution the public service has made to our economic success.

In spite of the foregoing, there is now a clear need to intensify the modernisation process. Consequently the former Taoiseach, Deputy Bertie Ahern, commissioned this report just over a year ago. Shortly after my appointment to Government last June, I put on record my dissatisfaction with the proliferation of Government bodies and agencies. We have gone too far right across government in handing over specific functions to agencies. In doing so, we are abdicating our responsibilities as the elected Government of the people. I, therefore, welcome the OECD's acknowledgement of the need to improve governance and I regard its recommendations in this area as among the most important in the entire report.

When the Government asked the OECD to carry out this work, it was provided with clear terms of reference. It was asked, first, to benchmark the public service in Ireland against other comparable countries and, second, to make recommendations as to the future directions for public service reform that will support the Government's drive for the delivery of world-class services to the citizen.

The review team conducted a series of over 100 interviews with Ministers and Oireachtas members, Government officials, social partners and other stakeholders from relevant bodies, the private sector and academia. In addition, following an advertising campaign in the media, a total of 834 submissions were received from private individuals and a further 102 submissions were received from various organisations.

The main recommendations of the report cover a wide range of issues relating to the formulation of policy and the delivery of services. The first of these relates to the need to focus on delivering the best services to citizens. This prioritisation on the part of the OECD must be correct. The citizen must be at the core of public services as it is the citizen who funds them. This must be borne in mind by all public servants in their dealings with citizens. Given the unprecedented resources invested by the Government in the past 11 years, it is only right that the public should demand improved levels of service delivery in its dealings with the public sector.

I welcome the OECD report's call for a more integrated public service. There is clearly a need for better interaction between stakeholders at local, national and international levels, and across these levels. The average citizen expects that Government services will operate in an integrated way and does not expect that he or she will have to commute between a range of public service bodies to avail of services that may be integrated.

I am conscious that moving towards such an integrated public service needs to be achieved in a carefully structured way so we will retain the benefits of initiatives already commenced. Staff should not feel threatened by this approach as the Government has a track record of advancing initiatives through a process of consultation with staff interests, and it will continue to do so.

In the past decade or so, Ireland has experienced unparalleled levels of economic success and prosperity. However, the economic environment has clearly become more challenging in recent months and the outlook is less benign and more uncertain. The risks that were identified in the last budget have materialised — recent developments in the international financial markets have led to a squeeze on liquidity; further appreciation of the euro against the dollar and sterling has made us the possessor of a strong currency, thereby weakening our international competitiveness; lower international growth; and, domestically, a sharper slowdown in housing construction. Therefore, we must all accept that the short-term prospects are more challenging and we must ensure that we respond appropriately. One way in which we can respond is to ensure that our public services are as efficient and effective as possible.

I agree fully with the report's suggestion that there must be a move towards a performance focus with more information being gathered and made available on the outputs and outcomes that have been achieved. My predecessor already has set in train the first steps in this process with the introduction of annual output statements for Departments. The OECD has acknowledged the success of these statements and has recommended that they be extended to agencies.

One timely proposal from the OECD relates to the need for greater prioritisation within budgetary frameworks. This means that, as a community, we will not be able to pursue all of our goals at the same time. The Government must focus on the priority areas of protecting the weaker in society by maintaining a high level of social spending, delivering better and more effective public services, seeking value for money at all levels of public spending and continuing to invest heavily in public infrastructure to support Ireland's long-term prospects.

The OECD rightly believes that e-Government must be used more widely to achieve a more citizen-centred approach. As Members are aware, the Taoiseach announced recently that responsibility for e-Government would be consolidated in my Department. This is in keeping with recommendations from both the OECD and the Comptroller and Auditor General's special report on e-Government.

One of the key tasks for the Department will be to establish the scope of the next e-Government programme. To this end, my Department will engage with Departments, offices and other public bodies to identify opportunities and to develop achievable e-Government targets. Such targets will be set in the context of the wider modernisation programme underlying the need to improve the quality of customer service and Ireland's standing in international benchmarking and perception, the need to drive administrative and process simplification and the need to improve value for money in a tightening fiscal environment. My Department also will establish a mechanism for reporting on such targets to the Government and for keeping it apprised of progress on a regular basis. It will focus on developing responses to the various benchmarks in this area, with particular emphasis on achieving better ratings in the European Union benchmarks. In this context, my Department also will agree with public bodies those services that should not be delivered on-line, as well as a rationale for their exclusion.

One significant e-Government initiative is Reach, the public services broker project. Following a review of Reach, its functions were transferred to my Department from the Department of Social and Family Affairs in April of this year. In line with the recommendations in that review, my Department is integrating the functions of the Reach portal onto existing Government websites, using off-the-shelf software for some of the more costly elements of the broker, and evaluating possible new approaches to addressing the problem of reliably establishing on-line identities. My Department also will work on developing template e-Government systems to help small and medium public bodies develop quickly an on-line presence on the Internet.

Now that the OECD team has completed its significant task, the process must be taken forward. The Government must assess each recommendation to ascertain which are optimal and can be taken forward immediately and which must be considered in more detail. With this in mind, the Taoiseach recently announced the formation of a task force to examine, among other matters, the OECD report. The terms of reference for the task force will require it to prepare for consideration by the Government a comprehensive framework for renewal of the public service, which will take into account the analysis and conclusions of the OECD report, as well as the lessons to be drawn from the strategic management initiative, the organisational review programme and the recent efficiency reviews.

The task force will be made up of those who have wide experience in both the public and private sector. The requirement for the task force to complete its work and report back to the Government by the end of the summer underlines the determination of the Government to maintain momentum in this process. The task force will consult with the public service unions as part of its work programme.

As I noted at the outset, the reform of the manner in which services are delivered to the citizen and the quality of those services is a central priority for the Government. The report provides the Government with a springboard for the reform process. It will stimulate a useful debate on the continued modernisation of the Irish public service and I wish the task force well in considering how many of the interesting recommendations included in the report can best be applied to Irish circumstances. I look forward to hearing Members' views on the report's findings and its suggestions on how the task force should proceed.

I wish to share time with Deputy Seymour Crawford. I seek eight minutes for myself and two for Deputy Crawford.

Is that agreed? Agreed.

The Minister for Finance's speech is more of the same. The Government commissions expensive reports, such as this OECD public management review and while it is a good report, it merely states the obvious. Although the Minister has left the House, I note the presence of the Minister of State at the Department of Finance, Deputy Martin Mansergh. I wish to make some references to the contents of the Minister's speech. He referred to what the Government has done in respect of increased integration of special needs education into mainstream education. What of the children with autism? The new OECD report refers to being citizen-centred. What about being child-centred? What of a child who has a special need to access in respect of applied behavioural analysis, ABA? No reference was made to it in the Minister's speech.

I note the Minister for Finance had a get-out clause in respect of agencies. He stated he had put on record his dissatisfaction with the increase in Government bodies and agencies. I am sure this is the case because 200 such bodies have been established under the Government's watch since 1997. A total of 1,000 such bodies exist, many of which are duplicating work.

As for the economic outlook, the Minister took no responsibility for the fact that when proper public service reform was required, the Government did absolutely nothing. While there have been countless reports, they never have been acted upon. Although the OECD report is good, will the Government act on it? Moreover, the Taoiseach, as Minister for Finance, set up the task force for public sector reform. While I welcome the putting in place of its committee members, will its recommendations be acted upon? Will it come up with anything that is not already known? I refer to the squandering of money and the simple measures that should have been put in place. For instance, public sector bodies and agencies should have been told to set targets of cuts in administration costs of 2% or 3% per year, thereby perhaps enabling the savings to go to frontline services.

As for output statements, as a new Deputy and an accountant, they provide little value. In the main they are narrative in form and must be reconsidered. They should be framed in language that will enable Members to engage in proper scrutiny. I refer to looking after those who are less well off. Since 2002, Government-regulated services have contributed 45% of the rate of inflation. Furthermore, the poor and vulnerable are affected by high rates of inflation in many respects and the Government has done little in this regard.

No proper planning took place in respect of e-Government and the Comptroller and Auditor General's report on the subject was damning. I note the Minister for Finance referred to the public service broker project. However, he completely neglected to mention that €35 million has been wasted on that project to date. Although he was discussing the Government's actions, he failed to mention the ill-functioning nature of the project. Furthermore, the Comptroller and Auditor General's report on e-Government stated that no plan was in place for 2007. While a plan existed for 2005 and 2006, proper planning was absent. In this regard, I was present at the final appearance of the former Taoiseach, Deputy Bertie Ahern, before the Select Committee on Finance and the Public Service. He admitted, on reflection, that the single area on which the Government was accountable pertained to the proper planning of e-projects and various projects. The Government obliged officials to perform their day jobs as well as trying to manage sophisticated projects. Specific teams, perhaps from several Departments, should have been looking after this area and the Government stands indicted in this regard.

I revert to the OECD report itself. It speaks about two main issues, namely, an integrated public service and citizen-focused services from the public service. In layman's terms, "integrated" means there is duplication of effort between Departments and agencies. Furthermore, an element of turf warfare probably is taking place between various agencies and this will come down to the individuals concerned. The phrase, "citizen-focused services", simply means that those who ring a Department will not be left waiting for 20 minutes to get through and will not be pushed from one person to another.

While many public servants do a terrific job, the consistency of service I seek is absent. That is a key point because one may phone the public service and receive an excellent service from one individual but speak to a different person when one calls again. This relates to management and putting systems in place.

Reference was made to Ireland's considerable demographic changes in recent years. Nearly 15% of Ireland's population is foreign-born. These people are very welcome, but that brings its own challenges. With our ageing population, the dependency ratio is increasing rapidly, which also presents challenges.

The report makes specific reference to proper planning for schools, which is important. That has not happened to date. In many urban settings houses are built and there are many young children, but no space is left to build schools. Some local authorities are good in this regard and others are not, but consistency is needed.

Regarding Government agencies, the report uses the word "agencification", which relates to the proliferation of agencies. The report states that the Government uses agencies to increase the number of people working in the public sector via a back door system. The report is critical of this practice because it has lead to a lack of accountability and increased fragmentation.

My final point relates to decentralisation and it will be of interest to the new Minister of State at the Department of Finance with responsibility for the Office of Public Works, Deputy Martin Mansergh. Decentralisation, which is now called administrative relocation, was not properly planned and if it is not properly implemented now it may lead to further fragmentation. I welcome the fact that the Comptroller and Auditor General has seen fit to conduct a report on this matter. The Government stands indicted. The Minister for Finance of the time, Mr. Charlie McCreevy, announced decentralisation to some fanfare on 3 December 2003. He said over 10,000 jobs would be decentralised by the end of 2006 and that if this was not achieved heads should roll. I have not seen heads roll yet. Will that happen? Only 2,700 jobs have been decentralised so far and only 120 people were decentralised in 2008. Only 50% of these people came from Dublin. What will the Minister of State, Deputy Mansergh, do on this issue? Will there be decentralisation and what changes will be introduced?

I thank Deputy O'Donnell for allowing me to contribute to this debate at the last minute. I make no apologies for saying my emphasis will be on the health services in the north east.

In the Dáil last Thursday, the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, said the OECD report supported the line she had taken under the Teamwork report. She also said she was going on advice she received from Northern Ireland. I did not find that support for the Minister in the OECD report. The organisation was careful not to be too prescriptive but suggested there should be two centres of excellence in the north east. I read on Thursday in the agendaNI magazine that two new hospitals will be built in the coming years in Northern Ireland, at a cost of £450 million. One hospital will be in Enniskillen and the other in Omagh, despite the fact that there are excellent, high quality services in Derry and Craigavon. I urge that, even at this late stage, the Minister talk to health service personnel in Northern Ireland and, more importantly, to the people trying to run the system in the north east, in spite of misdirection by Teamwork and the executives.

The recent occurrences in Drogheda do not give much confidence to the people I represent. I agree fully with the suggestion in the report that there must be a more performance-centred approach.

I wish to put on the record of the House my disappointment that a solemn commitment given by the then Taoiseach, Deputy Bertie Ahern, to the national and international media to fund a dual carriageway from Derry to Dublin has already been broken by the Government, through the Minister for Transport, Deputy Noel Dempsey, at a committee set up to oversee the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement. We need proper planning, commitment and, above all, honesty.

I congratulate Deputy Martin Mansergh on his elevation to the post of Minister of State at the Department of Finance and Deputy John Curran on his promotion to Minister of State at the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, with responsibility for drug strategy. I also congratulate Deputy Brian Lenihan, who has left the House; he has moved to the Department of Finance.

I welcome the debate on this very important report produced by the OECD. To begin my contribution I will quote from the first few lines of the executive summary which states:

Ireland's economic success story is one that many OECD countries would like to emulate. While the reasons underpinning Ireland's success are varied, the Irish public service has played a central role in ensuring that the right economic, regulatory, educational and social conditions are in place to facilitate growth and development. As with other OECD countries, Ireland has continually sought to modernise and reform its public service systems and practices to ensure that it can continue to meet the needs and expectations of Government and citizens. Over the past decade, thanks in no small part to its economic performance, the country has also seen significant changes in its demographic make-up.

The most important thing is that, while the report mentions our great success, it refers to change. These changes must be reflected in our public service. I will return to this point later in my contribution.

I was a little surprised to read in the report that the percentage of Government employees in the public sector is relatively low compared to other OECD countries. Ireland has significantly fewer public servants than countries such as Norway, Sweden, France, Finland and Belgium. It is shown in the report that in this area Ireland has the third lowest level of expenditure as a percentage of GDP. We should not focus on this too much because part of the reason for the existence of this statistic at the time the report was compiled was Ireland's tremendous economic growth of recent years. This figure is probably changing as we speak.

The report refers to the use of agencies and the considerable number of them in Ireland. My biggest problem with agencies, which is probably shared by many people in this House, is their lack of accountability. We have all tabled parliamentary questions and been referred to this, that or the other agency for a reply. I realise the Ceann Comhairle is trying to address this and I hope meaningful change can be effected in this regard. We must realise that simply doing away with some agencies does not mean there will be better output — some agencies already produce good output. We must be selective in our criticism. Many of the changes made in the public service and these agencies in the past decade have been internally focused. This is something we must address and I will refer to this later.

The report undertook five different case studies in health, education, local government, justice and the Civil Service, and I would like to refer to a couple of these. I agree with the previous speaker, Deputy O'Donnell, who referred to the whole area of school planning. There are huge difficulties in expanding urban areas, especially the greater Dublin area. The report questions the capacity of the Department of Education and Science to respond to needs in this area. There must be more co-operation with other agencies to ensure the situations that arose this year and last year do not recur.

I can give an example of what happened a number of years ago in my area when Waterford City Council sought to develop a whole new neighbourhood with approximately 10,000 new houses. This area is fairly well developed now. The council set aside a site for a school and informed the Department of Education and Science of this.

However, it was told it was none of its business. That type of interaction, or lack of interaction, is not helpful. I raised this with the Department recently and, in fairness, its attitude has changed and it has started to engage in this case. However, it needs to do a lot more of this. The local authority is also the planning authority and it knows where the developments are going and where there will be needs in the future. There must be more co-operation between these authorities.

One of the other case studies in the report was that of Garda civilianisation. I was not surprised to read in the report that the percentage of civilian workers in the Garda organisation is low. The OECD believes there is resistance to change within the Garda ranks. In my experience that is the case. A civilian who was working at a Garda station here in Dublin told me that the gardaí there do not want to give up their desk jobs and go out on the beat. These are people who have been trained to do that job. In many instances, the civilian staff do not have enough work to do because of the number of gardaí working inside. This issue is highlighted in the report and it is something that will have to change.

A citizen-focused approach is needed from the public service. Some people in the public service are very good at engaging with the end customer, while others are not. This must change. We must have some way of dealing with those who are not able to do so. I do not know what mechanism we could use. If it was in the private sector they could be dealt with, but some mechanism must be found to deal with them in the public sector also. The end customer is Government, business or a citizen. E-Government is not being fully exploited to assist the public service in dealing with the general public. There has been more than one instance of this.

As a member of the Committee of Public Accounts I have seen various Secretaries General report to the committee on a range of different issues. In many cases they attribute the reasons certain projects are not being carried out to the computer systems. The system is not up to speed, or its implementation has been delayed; it is not compatible with other systems that are being used within the Department or, more usually, it is not able to receive information from other agencies, be they outside agencies or other Departments, and the information must be input manually. This should not be happening. Technology appears to be a big problem within the public sector. There have been some spectacular successes, such as the Revenue on-line service, which system has been patented and sold to the authorities in France. The motor tax on-line service has also been a success. However, unfortunately there have not been enough of these.

We need to embed the use of information communication technology, ICT, throughout the public service. Too often e-Government initiatives and the use of ICT are seen as a technical issue rather than a way in which service delivery can be streamlined or improved. Rather than incorporating an ICT approach to problem solving or service delivery at an early stage, we try to retrofit new e-Government technologies on old ways of thinking and old systems and processes. Retrofitting does not work. Instead, we need to make better use of business process reviews and to rethink approaches to service delivery from the point of view of the citizen or end user.

There is one theme running throughout the OECD report. What hits me all the way through is the need for more teamwork, more interlinking between the Departments, which is simply not happening enough at present. It is happening now in that there are cross-cutting responsibilities at Minister of State level. This is something on which the previous Taoiseach, Deputy Bertie Ahern, embarked and which is being developed further by the present Taoiseach.

The Deputy's time has expired.

The main example has been the Minister of State with responsibility for children——

That means the Deputy should sit down.

——which includes areas in the Departments of Health and Children, Education and Science and Justice, Equality and Law Reform. This is being developed more and more. An integrated public service must be consistent, co-ordinated and networked and there must be sharing and pooling of information to prevent duplication such as that which exists at the moment. I commend the report to the House and I commend the Taoiseach on his obvious desire to bring about change in the public service. I look forward to the task force report at the end of the summer, at which time I hope we will have an opportunity to revisit this subject.

I wish to share five minutes of my time with Deputy O'Dowd.

I want to make a few comments on this report, which has been very expensive. However, I first congratulate both of the new Ministers of State, Deputy Martin Mansergh and Deputy John McGuinness, and wish them well in their appointments. I hope they will do two things in their new positions. I hope they will not do what every other Minister does when he or she come into the House, which is to listen to civil servants when they are answering questions. They should answer the questions and give the people the information.

Deputies

Hear, hear.

They should give them the information, that is all. Why are they hiding information from the public? That is why we have this report.

The Deputy should give me a chance.

The public come to us when they get frustrated with the HSE, the councils and the social welfare system. They come to us and ask us to get the information they need. We would not have half as much trouble if those in the public service answered people.

If a person writes to another person, whether it be in the HSE, the county council or the social welfare system, it is common manners to answer. Why will those who work in these organisations not answer the letters and write back a simple reply? That is what annoys and frustrates people. They cannot get a reply from the public service.

In recent times the most common employees in this country have been Mr. and Mrs. Voicemail. They are employed by the HSE, the OPW and the social welfare system. Did the Ministers of State ever hear of them? The trouble with Mr. and Mrs. Voicemail is that they do not call back. I do not know where they went for interview or how they got their jobs, but they do not answer the public.

All I can say is that this report is a very good one if its recommendations are to be followed. Something needs to be done with the public service in this country. When the public service works it is very good but when it does not work it is a disaster. Not all county council officials are bad — some of them are top-class officials who respond to queries and do their jobs. It is the people within the service who do not do their jobs who need to be targeted. Somebody needs to take on this responsibility. People are frustrated with the public service. There is sometimes a wait of three, four, five or six months to get a reply on a social welfare issue. These are people who have paid their dues to the State and all they want is to get their pensions on time, but they get letters back saying their queries cannot be dealt with for five or six months.

Another issue is reminiscent of what happened with the e-voting machines. There has never been as much money spent on social welfare as there was under this and the last two Governments. They spent it on social welfare and the health boards. Yet when we write to any of these organisations we get an answer saying it cannot deal with our query as the IT unit is down. This is despite our having spent millions — billions, in some cases — on these systems. What is wrong? Why can we not put people on the front line in the HSE, the social welfare system or the local authorities who can answer people's queries? These are the taxpayers. Those in the public service who think they do not have to answer questions must remember that if people were not out there paying their taxes they would not have jobs. That is why they have jobs, because the taxpayers put them in those jobs. They expect simple answers.

People come into my clinic having been frustrated for months by the lack of a reply from the council, the HSE or the social welfare authorities, yet in some cases all I have to do is to make a phone call to sort out the matter.

That is not acceptable in 2008. We were told that benchmarking would give us a better public service, but we do not have one.

People are reasonable, but many are frustrated by this, their greatest problem, and want it resolved by the HSE and the Department of Social and Family Affairs. There should be no mix-ups, letters sent to the wrong people or lost files. People are frustrated by the public service. If the report, on which a great deal of money has been spent, is to mean anything, its recommendations must be carried out.

The Deputy's time has elapsed.

I will conclude, but I would love to continue for another half an hour because I want to say more.

I also wish the Deputy could continue.

I will conclude for the Ceann Comhairle. We want to give the P60s to Mr. and Mrs. Voicemail.

Deputies

Hear, hear.

Yes. We would give them P60s were we keeping them in work. We want to give them their P45s and put real people behind the counter at the HSE and the Department of Social and Family Affairs.

Deputies

Hear, hear.

It is difficult to follow Deputy Ring. I agree with most of his comments and, while I would put them differently, he has put them well. Like him when he discussed the democratic deficit in the health service, I wish to refer to the section of the report that addresses the reconfiguration of hospital services. I also wish the two Ministers of State across the floor well, but I hope their time on the opposite benches will be short. It is my job to get rid of them.

There is a serious democratic deficit in the health service and people are losing trust in the HSE. It has lost that trust and credibility because there is no public accountability, fora or public representative involvement. In analysing the problems in the health services, while I accept the old health board system had its critics, people could go to a board meeting at least once per month and ask officials to account for themselves and their reports. Were there a meeting tomorrow, one could ask the officials to account for the appalling scandal regarding X-rays in Drogheda and Navan in which 4,700 people must wait for up to eight weeks for the issue of whether they have serious health problems to be resolved.

The report puts the case well when, on page 273, it states, "The reconfiguration reform project is not a resource issue". It also states:

A key challenge within the reform programme is communicating this prerogative to a population that has high expectations of service delivery, but feels that the government is just trying to save money by closing hospitals; they do not trust the government to provide the relevant services at primary care level in the short-to-medium term. Faith in the government and in the Health Service Executive to provide an appropriate level of service and to deliver on reforms has been exacerbated by a number of health care scandals.

Due to a lack of communication, no one believes the HSE or the Government when it comes to the reconfiguration of the health service. Trust in particular has broken down.

A heading in the report's recommendations on page 290 reads: "Take account of demographic needs using international trends". A key controversy in the north east has been the attempt to reconfigure five hospitals into two. According to recent HSE research, these hospitals will become one eventually. The report on which the decision is based is informed by a United Kingdom model and took account of the opinions of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, which claims that a catchment area for a general hospital should be between 450,000 and 500,000 people. However, it is worth noting that, within other OECD countries, there is a range of possibilities. For example, the catchment size for a general hospital of 500 beds in France and Germany is three times less, namely, one hospital for every 150,000 inhabitants. It is important to ensure the model used in the north-east region is the most appropriate. The HSE and the Government must carry out a broader consideration of international systems, including those that are similar in terms of needs. The Government could examine different patterns of hospital requirements.

These recommendations are at odds with HSE policy. According to the OECD, the outcome of an international review that includes the European experience could be the same, but it could be different. The north east needs two hospitals, which would meet the region's needs. The British model of reconfiguring five hospitals into one will not work and is not what the people want. I do not know why we should slavishly follow the Royal College of Surgeons of England and ignore the obvious experience in France and Germany. Will the Ministers of State bring this part of the report to the attention of the Minister for Health and Children and make it clear that five into two is the way to go in the north east? People want at least two hospitals, as the infrastructure will not allow for just one.

This subject is near and dear to the heart of every Deputy, including the Ceann Comhairle, who I do not doubt could wax lyrical in this respect for a long time. Deputy Ring provided inspiration when he mentioned the e-mail and voicemail systems, but pride of place goes to such a system in the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, which I had occasion to contact last year. It read to the effect that the person was sorry, that he or she was out of the office on that day, 23 April 2007, and that he or she would be back in one week. The only problem was that I contacted the person on 27 July. One can come to the conclusion that the person had not touched his or her e-mail between 23 April and 27 July. I do not know what degree of activity was occurring, but it could not have been great.

There is a tendency to treat the delivery of public services as if it were a business whereby the public must tolerate the quality and level of service provided. However, that is not how it should be. The public is entitled to demand and receive a service. Previous speakers have made other points. For an unknown reason, we have lost our way. It may be due to a lack of vocation; the vocational commitment of 25 or 30 years ago may no longer exist. Something is wrong because the delivery of public service follows different lines. An expert rather than the public decides what is good for the latter, such as the location of hospitals. The expert has regard to the convenience of the system for himself or herself, not for the public. An expert consulted another expert who consulted a third expert who leaked information to the media, the situation turned into a revolving circus and subsequently became policy. This has occurred for a long time, but it has become embedded in the system to such an extent that it is almost impossible to remove.

For example, all local authorities undertook a review of their housing lists at the direction of the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. Approximately 60,000 applicants are on those lists. At the end of a five-year period after the 2002 general election, the Government decided to recount the applicants to determine whether any had gone away or given up. The local authorities sent applicants a series of letters and, in some cases, the deadline for responses had expired three, four or five weeks before the letters had even been issued. There was nothing unusual in this, but the local authorities subsequently wrote to the applicants to tell them that they had been struck off the lists because they had not responded. This is the type of daftness that brings the public service and politicians into disrepute. The public has nothing but total contempt for this type of nonsense. The Ceann Comhairle would be well able to deal with such a situation in his constituency. Can he imagine the degree of frustration felt by members of the public who ring him to tell him they have been knocked off the housing list because they had not received the letters the local authority claimed it had sent?

It is a bit like refusing an invitation to a wedding that one never received.

Something must be done about it. I wish both Ministers of State, Deputies McGuinness and Mansergh, well in their respective roles. I have no doubt they will discharge their duties to the best of their abilities. One of the duties they should focus on relates to the issue I have raised, which brings everybody and everything into disrepute.

Another issue that causes problems for people relates to the closing dates for different schemes, which are imposed by officials within the system. I have no difficulty with the imposition of closing dates for administrative purposes. However, I object when people whose applications arrive after the closing date are told that they cannot be considered this year and that they must go on the waiting list for the following year. There is no legislative provision for such penalties. Rather, these are internal provisions imposed for the convenience of officials. How dare they deprive an applicant of a higher education grant, for example, simply because some arbitrary closing date has passed? It is the job of these public servants to deliver the service in question to those who require it within the year to which the application refers. I could speak about this forever because the degree of public frustration in this regard is such that public representatives are all getting the blame.

There has been much debate on the establishment of proposed centres of excellence for the provision of cancer care services. When did it become the case that only certain hospitals could strive to attain that status? It was my understanding that all hospitals were obliged to be centres of excellence, with the same standards in all, rather than there being some with a higher standard than others. Deputy O'Dowd observed that the model being implemented in this country was scrapped long ago in the United Kingdom when it was found that it did not work. There were so many bottlenecks in the delivery of services that the model was entirely changed.

Somebody needs to take by the scruff the members of the think tanks who produce these ridiculous notions and tell them that before they offer any consultancy advice in future, they must set out where they got their information, who they consulted and took advice from and how much they are being paid to provide that advice. I have been putting down parliamentary questions on this issue since I first became a Member of the House and I am still awaiting answers to those questions. It would be of great benefit if something was done in this regard as a result of this report. Perhaps it is a job for one of the new and energetic Ministers of State. Civil servants and Ministers may not like it but it is important to get answers to these simple questions. All we seek are simple answers without long preambles and convoluted explanations.

I hope I have made some of the points that the Ceann Comhairle might have made. I have no doubt he is thinking along the same lines as me.

I am glad that I approved the replies to the first two of Deputy Ring's parliamentary questions before coming to this debate.

I hope they are good.

I hope they are not long. It is better to be direct and to the point.

They are not too long. I welcome the publication of the OECD review as a starting point for the next phase in the reform of the public service. I am proud of our public service, with which I have had a close working relationship, initially as a member and for some years subsequent to that as an adviser. Whether one looks to the peace process, our place at the heart of the EU or social partnership and the success of the economy, it is clear the public has been well served by its public servants, particularly in the past 21 years. I know from direct experience the improvements that have taken place in the efficiency of agricultural grants and the streamlining of the tax system, particularly through the Revenue on-line service. I look forward to creative interaction with the civil servants in my Department in my role as Minister of State. My wife and I took the opportunity some nights ago to watch several episodes of "Yes, Minister". I particularly enjoyed the one in which the Minister proposes to demolish an art gallery to fund a favourite sports organisation in his constituency but is frustrated in so doing.

It is clear from today's discussion that further advancement of the public service modernisation programme must be focused on the needs of citizens. We must keep the public at the centre of public services. The person on the street is not deeply interested in issues of public service organisation; he or she simply wants to see the prompt and efficient delivery of services. At its heart, modernisation is about delivering excellent public services. We have come a long way in delivering on this agenda since the launch of the strategic management initiative in 1994 and the Delivering Better Government programme in 1996. These initiatives set the agenda for modernisation and change to ensure that, on an ongoing basis, the public service would make a greater contribution to national development, be a provider of top class services to the public and make effective use of resources.

The implementation of the modernisation agenda is driven by various partnership agreements across the public service. The current agreement, Towards 2016, builds on the progress made under its predecessors and ensures continued co-operation with change and modernisation initiatives as well as improvements in productivity throughout the public service. It is fair to say that the implementation of the strategic management initiative and delivering better Government programme, as well as the ongoing partnership approach, have contributed greatly to expanding, improving and reforming our public services.

There have been significant improvements in the areas of financial management, human resource management, regulatory reform, e-Government initiatives and custom service delivery mechanisms. Significant service improvements have also been made and many people's direct experience with the public service is good, with some obvious exceptions in pressurised areas. However, while significant progress has been made in the last decade or so, we must accept that many more changes are both awaited and needed. Our society and economy continue to change, rapidly in some cases, and public services must keep pace with, and preferably anticipate, that change.

Several Deputies referred to decentralisation. I took the opportunity yesterday to visit the temporary decentralised offices in Tipperary town, which were opened earlier this month. Many of the staff members are from Limerick and are pleased to be able to work closer to home.

How many other offices does the Minister of State plan to open this year?

I did not open these offices; I made an informal visit. I may be asked to open the new offices of the Private Security Authority in Tipperary later this year.

How many offices will the Minister of State open outside Tipperary? That is the question.

We will see. There is a misconception that decentralisation is all about civil servants being shipped out of Dublin. In many cases, they are people who, for the first time, are able to work in the area in which they live.

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