Minister, thank you very much for being with us this evening. I welcome you back to the House and I ask Senators not to call for a quorum during this debate.
Reform of Ministers and Secretaries Act, 1924: Motion.
Old habits die hard. You might direct your request to the Minister.
You never forgave me, a Chathaoirleach, did you?
More to the point, he never forgot.
I move:
That Seanad Éireann urges the Cabinet to give high priority to a comprehensive reform of the Ministers and Secretaries Act, 1924, to enable the Government and the public service to adapt more effectively to modern conditions.
Go raibh maith agat, a Chathaoirligh. Cuirim fáilte roimh an t-Aire. Tá súil agam go bhfeicfimid í go minic sa Teach seo sna blianta atá romhainn. The Minister is very welcome. I thought for a moment that the Cathaoirleach's reference to the quorum reflected on what some might consider the esoteric nature of the proposal but I gather that it refers to historic events before my time.
Some might consider this motion to be an esoteric matter but it is actually the most important issue that could come before us. I am taking as my text the paragraph in the Programme for Renewal which refers to reform of the Ministers and Secretaries Act, 1924, and says that, in co-operation with the public service, reform of the Ministers and Secretaries Act, 1924, will be undertaken with a view to, inter alia, the separation of policy and executive functions of Departments, and clearly highlighting all areas of direct ministerial accountability in matters of policy and practice so as to evolve delegative exercise of power and responsibility.
One response to that is to say that we have been over this ground so often in the last 25 years that we will merely be adding more vacuous words to the thousands, if not hundreds of thousands already spoken, many of them in this Chamber. It is a purgative experience and not just for the normal reasons, to read the debates in this Chamber on the Devlin report and the establishment of the Department of the Public Service and see how far, or rather how little, we have progressed since then in terms of reforming the public service. Nevertheless, some important things have happened, particularly the establishment of the top level appointments committee and many more important things can happen if there is a combination of political will, in Government and in the Civil Service. We must start with Government because the lead must come from politicians.
As regards the paragraph in the programme, I agree very much with the theme of co-operation with the public service because this has to be done in large measure through consensus. That does not mean that the most antediluvian blocker can be left in position permanently, but it does mean that a majority have to be brought along with the thought process of reforming the public service. I do not think it can be imposed, and it ought not to be imposed even if it could be, because the willingness to participate in change by those who are effected is, as far as I am concerned, both a principle of Government and a principle of good management. I am not talking about imposing anything.
If I criticise or seem to criticise some aspect of the Civil Service it is not because I am critical of the Civil Service in general. We have an awful habit in this country the moment we criticise an institution, everybody in that institution takes it personally. If I criticise the Civil Service it is precisely the same as when I criticise universities. It is not because I am opposed or hostile to them, it is because I value them and think they can do better with the potential at their disposal if they organise themselves more effectively.
Reform would be undertaken with a view to, inter alia, the separation of policy and executive functions of Departments. That, of course, is going back to the standard Devlin model of the Aireacht and the executive unit and so on. I would not be in the least dogmatic about the type of organisational structure one would impose. I can see it varying from Department to Department depending on specific circumstances, but the fundamental problem Devlin confronted was the use of time by the best quality minds in the Civil Service; their time should not be squandered on minutiae as far as possible. Exactly the same applies to politicians by the way, and indeed to others, although they live in different cultures and they have very little choice in the matter.
Quality time of the best minds in the Civil Service has to be protected. It must not merely be protected, it must not be frittered away dealing with endless trivia. It is over 30 years since Dr. T.K. Whittaker, then Secretary of the Department of Finance, made a plea for finding time to think. Where could he and senior civil servants find time to think? That was in a much simpler age where there was far less documentation to read and we did not have the European commitments we have now. If 30 years ago one of the finest minds to have ever served this country felt under pressure in finding time to think, what must be the position with most senior public servants today? That happens to be one of the most important issues confronting us.
When I say "senior" I am not talking about seniority as merely in age, because there is a lot of talent there. It is one of the biggest problems confronting the Civil Service that a lot of talent was recruited roughly 20 years ago when there was a big recruitment drive for the public service in the mid and late 1970s. Much of that talent is now bunched together and its promotional outlets are blocked. There must be a lot of frustration for many people in the promotional structures in the Civil Service at present. One cannot resolve that easily but one can give responsibility if the will is there, responsibility of a type which makes the work more challenging.
One should be prepared to delegate within the Civil Service to a greater extent; one should be prepared to devolve responsibility to a greater extent and then be prepared to recognise, because recognition is very important in sustaining morale, the contributions of people who may not have the level of seniority they would wish but whose work is often very important and does not receive the recognition it deserves within its own Department. That problem is by no means confined to the Civil Service, it exists in every institution in the country.
If our best people do not have time to think, from where will our ideas come? They will come from a variety of sources, usually at second hand. We are now far more reliant on consultants than we were 30 years ago when they were virtually unknown. The quality of consultancy advice — and this is a point I have made time and again but I see no reason to change it — is extremely uneven. The best can be very good but much of it is not the best and there is a lot of, I do not want to say rubbish but that is what it is, in many expensive consultants' reports. Likewise we have some very good, more general reports but even many senior civil servants are reduced to relying on executive summaries, as indeed virtually all politicians are as well as most commentators.
Executive summaries are useful and if they are done well they are indispensable but they are dangerous in terms of quality of thinking for the simple reason that they give the conclusions without presenting the evidence, so you do not know what the quality of the use of evidence is on which these conclusions are based. If, as I say, our best minds do not wrestle with the quality of the evidence on which the conclusions are based, then they are likely to swallow whatever is the fashion of the moment and become prisoners of contemporary fashion instead of thinking through the implications from the quality of their own minds.
One reason we hear such a consensus — very often a consensus of platitudes — on a whole range of policies is that none of the policy makers is thinking through these policies, not because they are stupid or incapable of wrestling with these assumptions, but because they simply do not have the time and it is easier to run with your executive summary than to try to wrestle with the basic material. That is reinforced by the propensity of public servants, and politicians and Ministers also, to listen to what is said in the corridors in Brussels, at OECD meetings or among EU working groups; and if a consensus appears to be emerging among their colleagues there about the general direction in which policy should go in European countries, then they come back reinforced in the conviction that it is the correct way to go in this country, which it may be. However, it is not the correct way to go because others think it is the correct way to go for their own countries. We need to try to make thinking time and space for the best minds we have. We are not succeeding in doing that at present.
Before I talk about the corporation sole idea, I would mention one glaring lacuna — we have spoken about it often here — in our current governmental structure, which is effective co-ordination techniques and systems. I will not rehearse what one has said already about how few of our departmental structures now correspond adequately to the actual type of problem they are confronting. Most of the major problems that face this country transcend departmental distinctions and one of the main challenges confronting this or any Government is how to effectively co-ordinate departmental activity.
Interdepartmental committees are not an adequate solution, because all they do is bring the departmental perspective and arrive at a compromise based on departmental interests. Cabinet is not an adequate solution. One might think in principle it ought to be, but the Cabinet depends not on co-ordinating policy but on balancing interests. That has to be the case — I am not lamenting that; it is just part of nature. Therefore, unless co-ordinated policy is presented to Cabinet in the first instance, Cabinet is not going to succeed in co-ordination.
We have to ask carefully how we effectively co-ordinate; how we build co-ordination into our systems of decision making and not simply how, after a variety of alternative and often conflicting proposals comes through, we strike a politically acceptable compromise, in administrative terms, between them. We have to be much more——
Senator, you have two minutes left.
Two minutes? I have just started. How do we think proactively — I hate the terms — rather than reactively about co-ordination. On the corporation sole principle, ministerial responsibility, which is what most people mean by this — I know there will be others and I am glad to see people here——
A Chathaoirligh, there will not be too many speakers this evening and it is an important debate. I am sure the House would not be upset if Senator Lee was allowed a couple of minutes extra.
I have no objection if the House has no objection.
I was about to make the same proposal. I was enjoying it and hoping it would continue.
In that case Senator Quinn will second.
I must apologise to the House, I have myself to leave quickly. I am grateful to all who have co-ordinated the arrangements just now. I am writing of the matter in a prominent public publication soon and I will take I hope adequate notice of every worthwhile point when it comes to that. The point has often been made — it is not original to me; the Leader made it the other day — that in 1924 departmental structures were simple. One can look at the departmental structure and see nobody but a Secretary or an Assistant Secretary and a Higher Executive Officer in several Departments. That is completely gone. The idea that a Minister today can be remotely personally responsible for everything happening in the Department is simply nonsense. At one stage we might have regarded it as a polite fiction, now it is simply a fraudulent facade. It is important that the right message should go out from this assembly that one does not want to sustain that in future, indefinitely and interminably.
There are areas where of course the Minister has to be accountable and has to be directly responsible, but that does not mean everywhere. An unfortunate habit has begun recently of blaming civil servants from time to time for matters which were previously regarded as ministerial responsibility. Civil servants ought to take the blame for matters for which they are delegated responsibility, but if they do not have that responsibility by legislation then they ought not to have to take the blame. If there is not responsibility it is most unfair of politicians to try to shift the responsibility to civil servants in specific circumstances on specific occasions. That matter should be cleared up so that everybody knows what the lines of responsibility are and accepts responsibility for that for which they are responsible, whether it is the civil servant or the Minister.
Ministerial responsibility is now counterproductive to thinking constructively and positively about public affairs. One might make many points about it, but I will refer to the Minister of State, Deputy Gay Mitchell's speech in the statements earlier where he greatly welcomes the importance attached by Jacques Santer to such issues as "... openness, transparency [where did we hear that before] and the need for participation ... Indeed, this Government has attached a high priority to transparency at both national and European levels". We cannot have transparency nor can we be serious about it unless we make a serious effort to identify reality in public administration, to identify what actually happens as distinct from the ministerial front covering everything.
No Government can be regarded as being serious about these commitments unless it is prepared to implement them, of course in a discerning manner, in public administration. It is also important to bring the public administrators along with that. We have top class public administrators; we have the potential for them to achieve even more of their own capability. My criticism of our public service, as of many other institutions, is not that we do not have a remarkable number of first class people in the service; it is the structures we have devised for them which cramp them and prevent them achieving their own full potential. Due to the time constraints, I will not go into mechanisms for doing that, but it is one of the most important issues that confronts us.
Reform, as has often been said, is not an event; it is a process. It is also, of course, a thankless task, as the Minister will be well aware. I was looking recently at a speech by John Boland, who was, whatever one thinks of his specific actions, one of the most courageous Ministers the State has had in recent times — much good it did him in electoral terms. There is not much electoral gain in much of this work; but if there is a public perception that a commitment to openness, freedom of access, freedom of information and to the general thrust of the type of society which I hope we want to be, is being blocked by a coyness, cuteness or a "too-clever-by-halfness" in terms of ministerial responsibility covering up what happens, there will be a gradual erosion of public confidence in this Government's commitment to the type of regime to which it has committed itself.
I welcome the Minister and I welcome the challenge facing her. As an actor one is always told never to follow a child or an animal——
Can I be a baby animal? Not a pup.
Having listened to Senator Lee I feel weak speaking on this matter. It is a joy to listen to Senator Lee and I know the Minister listened with avid interest, as we all did. I was glad the Leader suggested that he not be limited as to time because I could have gone on listening for some time. I commend Senator Lee for introducing the topic.
The Ministers and Secretaries Act is crucially important legislation. Not a great many people know much about it other than those in the institutions of the State. When I was asked by the Government in 1979 to become Chairman of An Bord Poist — a name we were happy to get rid of later for An Post — I came for the first time from the private enterprise business world into the State sector. I realised how little I knew, and I was not much different from the vast majority of those in business who do not understand how the system works. I was not even aware of the implications of the Ministers and Secretaries Act, 1924.
I know that the Irish Management Institute and the Institute of Public Administration over a number of years made various efforts to create interchanges between senior management in industry and business and in the State organisations, and had a great deal of difficulty. The Act was crucially important legislation because it and its many amendments effectively regulate the relationship between the people and the administrative machinery that serves them, the relationship between citizens and the State. Because of this central role, it is important that every so often we dust off the legislation, look at it again to see what we should do.
Having read the Principal Act last week in relation to the Bill which created Minister Doyle's position, it was a revelation to me as an outsider, because it showed how things had changed over the past 70 years since it was passed. It seems that the type of thing which is now taking place is very worthy, particularly the strategic management initiative which the Minister has been — I was going to say "burdened", which I am sure is the wrong word — offered as a challenge. I am sure she has accepted that challenge because in many ways this is the right time to do it.
One of the many basic assumptions underlying that Act may no longer be valid today. A second reason why we need to take a fresh look at it is because of the heavily amended aspect of that legislation. Amending legislation is not a bad thing, but amendments are often made simply to respond to specific needs. That in itself is quite dangerous, because if one amends legislation for a specific reason without taking a fundament look at the whole situation then, as has happened in the past, the amendments do not realise the implications they may later have.
Such considerations, the almost patchwork look of the present Act because of the amendments made since 1924, led — I believe Senator Lee said 20 years ago — to the setting up of the Devlin committee which produced a report which I suggest was both radical and far-reaching. St. John Devlin is remembered for the constraints he put on the income levels of senior civil servants and those in State bodies. The report was interesting, far reaching and useful because it looked at something which had not been considered in that way for many years. Some of the recommendations made in that report eventually found their way into the Statue Book, but others fell by the wayside because of blocks in the political or the administrative system. It is tempting to believe that a generation later it is time for another big bang approach like the Devlin report. However, I am not sure that is the right way to go about it.
There is a fallacy in that approach which could prevent us from having the best administrative system, and that is what appealed to me when Senator Lee spoke about seeking the best system to do the work. That is what we should look at. The fallacy I refer to is the assumption that there is a perfect way. I do not believe there is a perfect way to run anything. If there was, there would be no modern books, speakers and consultancies advising on new ways of doing things. Some believe that all we have to do is find a model, put it in its place and from then on things will be fine until in the future changing circumstances will call for a different perfect model suited to that time. I believe that is erroneous and fundamentally wrong.
The way the world works is that there are no perfect models, but many imperfect ones. The way to run an enterprise, whether it is a State or a private one, is to take an imperfect model, accept it as such, but constantly seek to improve it. Rather than try to move from imperfection to perfection in one step, we must accept that the journey must consist of a large number of small steps. I am talking about evolution rather than revolution. Instead of working to a model of 25 or 50 years ago and only changing by means of big shake-ups when forced to do so, one must accept that the only way to run an enterprise is by changing constantly, a few small steps at a time. Evolution is easier than revolution, not least because it is easier to sell to the various parties involved and to put right.
If one works by taking many small steps, one can build in-course corrections along the way. One can also reverse mistakes if one makes them, as one invariably will. For example, the last Government created several new Departments. That was what I call a big bang which reverberated right across the board. I want to focus on the Department of Trade and Tourism. That Department is responsible for Bord Fáilte on the one hand and Bord Tráchtála on the other. In the long term that Department is a nonsense — there is no logic to it. One of the main reasons is that the Export Board reports to a different Minister to the Minister responsible for industrial development generally. That flies totally against commercial reality and it makes the co-ordination of policy virtually impossible to effect.
The only sense the Department of Trade and Tourism made was in terms of what we call a personal chair. The Leader of the House and Senator Lee will understand that term because that is the one used in universities where they appoint a personal chair for somebody who suits that situation. In universities I understand that when that person ceases in that position, either dies or retires, then that personal chair is removed. That does not seem to happen in Government. Perhaps initially a Minister is appointed to a personal chair, but when that person moves on it stays there for whoever takes their place. We must be careful that each change is not assumed to be right or permanent because one Government later we still have this ridiculous Department of Trade and Tourism. We have not faced the fact that whatever merit it may have had in certain circumstances, it makes no sense once they change. The perfect model system encourages the perpetuation of mistakes like that.
I am not saying Government Department are not abolished, but too often it is for the wrong reasons. Following the Devlin report 20 years ago, we created the Department of the Public Service, which has been swallowed back into the Department of Finance. The Department of Economic Development also disappeared. More Departments disappear because of what I call turf wars or because of the constitutional limitation on the number of Cabinets rather than the fact they do not make sense anymore. We should face the fact that when it comes to Government and administration, changes tend to be cast in stone. That approach makes us less ready to experiment with changes and it certainly makes us slower to undo the mistakes we make in the past. In this regard, evolution is better than revolution.
It is necessary to remain as fluid as possible because of the difficulty of working across departmental boundaries, a task which the Minister has undertaken. In the private sector we always have difficulty working across functional boundaries. One of the challenges of management is to deal with this. That is why one of the in things in management at present is the area re-engineering. It is a challenge for the Minister which she will face with enthusiasm. Boundaries are a problem in any organisation, but they seem to pose a particular difficulty for Government. Among other things, transport is about roads, but they are not the responsibility of the Department of Transport, Energy and Communications. There may be various reasons for this — some may be good — but there is no ideal permanent solution to such conflicts. On that basis I welcome this debate and I am happy to second the motion.
We have an opportunity to examine what happens elsewhere. My son-in-law is a senior civil servant in Paris. He is a Frenchman who works as a senior executive in one of the state companies there. He explained to me the system in Paris where there is a post-graduate school called Ecole Normale d'Administration. Its main purpose is to spread knowledge of the administrative system, not only among civil servants, but among those who may become legislators, Ministers, judges, advisers to Ministers and political parties. There must be some opportunity for us to do something like that if only to ensure an understanding of the job which must be done and which is effectively being done in many areas. Let us continue to try to make it more effective in the future.
I thank you, a Chathaoirligh, for your words of welcome and for reminding me and the House of my days in the Seanad not so long ago, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I have always found the Seanad——
I know well that you did, Minister.
——an interesting Chamber and I enjoyed every moment of my time here.
I would like to express my thanks to Senator Lee, Senator Quinn, Senator Henry and Senator O'Toole for putting down this motion. I welcome the opportunity to tell the House of the Government's plans which are directly relevant to the motion.
Public service reform was described in this House only last week as a thankless task. I would not entirely disagree. We have had lots of reports and analyses, but very little radical reform. I often feel that the various initiatives over the years in public service reform are a little like the aftermath of a photo finish at Leopardstown, Navan or Fairy-house; a short period of great fuss followed by a period when people wonder what all the fuss was about, followed by an even longer period when people forgot that there had ever been a fuss in the first place. I know I may be accused of political recklessness for saying this, a Chathaoirligh, but I am going to say it anyway. This Government will not let up until we have reshaped our system of public administration to fit the particular needs of our people at this stage of our history.
In response to what Senator Lee said — he evoked T. K. Whitaker and his plea to allow civil servants to find time to think — basically what it is all about today, and this would incorporate the aspirations of T.K. Whitaker, is ensuring that people can work smarter not harder. There are very hard working people throughout the civil and public service, but there is a case in many areas for working smarter and not harder. In a sentence, that is really what this is all about.
Those who have read this Government's programme of work —A Government of Renewal— will have noticed that the very first item in our strategy for renewal section is the reform of the Ministers and Secretaries Act, 1924. That Act is the bedrock legislation upon which our Civil Service system is based. The 1924 Act provided, inter alia, for the establishment of the Departments of State, Ministers, as the heads of their respective Departments, to be “corporations sole” and the expenses of each of the Departments of State to be subject to the sanction of the Minister for Finance and to be paid out of moneys provided by the Oireachtas.
To give the House a clearer view of the Government's intentions in this area, I will quote the relevant section our programme:
In co-operation with the public service, reform of the Ministers and Secretaries Act, 1924, will be undertaken, with a view to, inter alia, the separation of policy and executive functions of Departments, and clearly highlighting all areas of direct Ministerial accountability in matters of policy and practice, so as to allow for the delegated exercise of power and responsibility. Within the agreed budgetary allocations for their Departments under various heads and subheads, Ministers will have the freedom to implement agreed policy, without requiring further financial authorisation.
This is a radical agenda. When implemented, it will transform the organisation of the Civil Service, will clarify and, if necessary, redefine the respective roles of Ministers and civil servants and will accord significant additional financial autonomy to Departments.
While we are only at the early stages of our consideration of these issues, I should like to flesh out a little the plans which the Government has in the areas affected. The separation of the policy and executive functions of Departments would be a critical area. This is not a novel proposal. Its inspiration is at least as old as the report of the Public Services Organisation Review Group — the Devlin report, to which Senators have referred — which was published in 1969 and concluded that:
An efficient, developmental and acceptable public service can best be achieved if its policy and executive roles are assigned to broadly distinguishable types of body. Overall policy formulation, direction and control should be the task of central areas of Departments, the Minister's advisers, who constitute the Aireacht. Execution should be the responsibility of executive bodies with the greatest practicable operating freedoms.
The separation of policy and execution was also envisaged in the White Paper Serving the Country Better, published in 1985, which envisaged that:
Where Departments have a sufficiently large volume of purely executive work, Ministers will be enabled by legislation to transfer such work to separate offices — to be known as executive offices — which will have full responsibility for discharging it effectively.
It is clear for all to see that this concept has been in the public domain for a long time indeed. In fact, a number of other countries which "discovered" the principle of separating policy and execution long after we did, and may I suspect have even taken inspiration from our proposals, have actually gone out and implemented the idea.
The separation of policy and execution has much to recommend it. It allows managers in the areas concerned to devote their energies to the delivery of the public services for which they are responsible; at present they have an additional function as policy advisers to Ministers. Ministers rather than their officials are widely regarded as being constitutionally and legally responsible for all aspects of the of Departments. Civil servants are, accordingly, much influenced in their performance by the parliamentary accountability of their Ministers. As a result, they tend to exercise a level of caution in their actions and feel the need to maintain a volume of records which may not be commensurate with the efficient discharge of major services to the public.
Managers in large service oriented sections or divisions of Departments ought to be freed from the constraints which the existing arrangements impose. I see this change as closely linked to the moves, which I intend to initiate separately, to improve the delivery of public services generally; working smarter not necessarily harder is what it is mainly about.
It would be foolish, not to say misleading, if I were not to acknowledge that there are bound to be difficulties associated with the separation of policy and its execution, not least of which is the fact that, in some instances, the dividing line between the two is not at all clear cut and in certain cases may come down to a judgment call while in others, it may well be that the lines are so blurred that no meaningful distinction between the two can be drawn. These observations are not counsels of despair, rather they represent a realistic acknowledgement that the road ahead may be bumpy. However, I would never regard such a consideration as a reason for not starting out on the journey and seeing it through to the end.
The second strand of our review of the 1924 Act concerns the doctrine of the Minister as corporation sole. Much learned argument has been advanced about the significance of this principle. The Devlin report concluded that the implication of this was that the Minister "in law, must himself make all decisions relating to his Department.". That report went on to say that "this legal imperative remains a polite fiction. Daily a multitude of decisions are taken by civil servants in every Department of State without reference to the Minister.".
A similar view was taken by the White Paper, Serving the Country Better, where it was observed that:
Except in a very few instances, the Minister has not been given power to delegate the discharge of his functions even to staff at the highest level in his Department.
Notwithstanding the views expressed in these eminent reports, the question of what the corporation sole concept actually means may not be quite so black and white. There is another school of thought which says that under the Ministers and Secretaries Acts and the Constitution, the power of the State may be exercised by the Government or, through delegation, by Departments of State. This recognition, that Departments and Ministers are distinct entities, seems to be implicit even in the Long Title of the 1924 Act, which commences with the words "An Act for constituting and defining the Ministers and Departments of State in Saorstat Éireann....".
This Government is not content to continue with this situation of legal ambiguity. We intend to undertake the necessary research, both administrative and legal, in order to arrive at a more definitive interpretation of the position. It might, of course, as a result emerge from these investigations that what I might call the more narrow, conventional interpretation of the corporation sole doctrine, which would vest all power and responsibility in the Minister and in the Minister alone, is in fact the correct one. If so, then we will initiate the necessary statutory amendments to ensure that the legal framework corresponds with the practical necessities of public administration. It will be immediately evident that if we are to pursue the notion of hiving off large parts of Departments and forming them into executive agencies operationally free from their parent Departments, as I indicated earlier, then we must know precisely where the dividing line between the power of Ministers and that of their civil servants resides.
Over the years the Department of Finance has been moving away from tight centralised control over public expenditure. Considerable delegation of detailed expenditure has already been allowed to Civil Service Departments. On the control of administrative costs front, which includes such items as staffing, engagement of consultants, office accommodation, telecommunications costs and so on, considerable freedoms have also been delegated to Departments. The strategic management initiative envisages that this process will be continued so that the maximum possible level of delegation of spending powers, consistent with retaining overall budgetary control, should be made. What we are seeking is to develop a cooperative, open relationship between the Department of Finance and spending Departments.
Of course, the review of the Ministers and Secretaries Act is but one element in the Government's comprehensive programme of public service reform. We have a number of other red hot pokers in the fire, including legislation to open up public access to official information — freedom of information legislation, once enacted, will be my responsibility to implement — improvements in physical access to information and rights for both able-bodied citizens and those with disability; overhauling of the facilities available for community information, building on the network already in existence in the voluntary and statutory sectors; putting in place structures and funding to return the greatest amount of opportunities to an effective and accountable administration; an Administrative Procedures Act, which will be drafted and which will vest in the Office of the Ombudsman monitoring and regulatory functions aimed at ensuring that the citizen gets the best possible service every time he or she has dealings with the various branches of our public administration; the review of the legislation underpinning the Ombudsman with the objective of extending the remit of the Office; exemptions from that office's powers will also be given specific attention. Major Oireachtas reforms will be initiated, including the introduction of privilege and compellability legislation to enhance the investigative powers of Oireachtas committees.
The unifying factor behind all of these changes is the wish to make our democracy a living, day-to-day reality for every citizen. All of this amounts to an ambitious programme. I firmly believe that the various elements which are essential to its success are in place. There is firm political will for public service reform, even where this means that political office holders may have to make adjustments to some of their traditional roles and practices. There is an unprecedented level of enthusiasm and determination for change among the ranks of our Civil Service. This is most important. I am reliably informed that our civil servants no longer take their inspiration from the young St. Augustine: "Lord, reform me, but not yet". Finally, we have the reassurance of knowing that there is a strong trend towards the reform of public services in many western democracies which can provide us with inspiration as well as advance warnings against certain pit falls.
I accept and appreciate very much the point made by Senator Quinn that this is all about evolution and not revolution. Attempts in the past might be deemed to have failed because they were imposed from the outside in or from the top down. Evolution, with politicians and civil servants going forward together, is the way we will achieve the important changes which are so necessary in the age in which we now live.
I accept the point made by Senator Lee about the danger of relying on executive summaries which give conclusions without outlining any of the evidence. This is a most important point. I also agree with his assessment of consultants. There are some excellent people in that field, some self-appointed. It is really a case of buyer beware in this entire area. We want to know and appreciate the type of knowledge we are buying or inviting before we get into the whole field of consultants.
There was a plea from Senator Lee for the co-ordination of departmental functions. This will be one of my most important and delicate areas of reform. One of the great scandals of the Houses of Parliament in the last few years is the little work we have done in the child care area. One of the real reasons, which has never been admitted, as to why progress has been so scandalously slow is because the functions of child care are the remit of three separate Departments — the Departments of Health, Education and Justice. One could never get them to sit down and agree a programme on which to go forward. What the Department of Health wanted was not approved of by the Departments of Health and Justice. What the Department of Justice wanted, the other two were out of step with. This Government has recognised, in the appointment of Deputy Currie as Minister of State with responsibility in these three Departments, the need for horizontal co-ordination of functions through Departments and not just having vertical functions with each Department standing alone. Child care is an easy example of how we have failed to proceed in a critical area because of lack of co-ordination of departmental functions. I entirely agree with the case made by Senator Lee on this point and the Government has already taken it on board.
It will be a particular responsibility of mine to ensure that Departments work smarter, not necessarily harder. Most civil and public servants with whom I come in contact work hard, but not always smartly. Those in the Civil Service and those of us politically charged with this job should, together, make the radical reforms which are necessary through evolution and not revolution, to borrow the words of Senator Quinn. I appreciate the opportunity to put my views on the record and the interest shown by the Seanad in forwarding this motion this evening.
I welcome the Minister and congratulate her on taking up what I regard as far from being a brief which is difficult. It is probably the most exciting brief in Government. In 1979 Mr. Ray MacSharry was appointed Minister of State at the Department of Finance with special responsibility for public service reform. I spoke to him that night. He said that when he first received word of his appointment, he wondered about the brief. As he thought about it through the day he realised it gave him a canvass on which he could draw and he went from strength to strength. I have no doubt that the Minister sees this brief as a challenge and a canvass on which she will make a very big impression.
Fianna Fáil is committed to making Ireland's public administration system more responsive to the needs of the Irish people, more effective and more relevant to the challenges of modern government. One area personally tagged for reform by our party leader in the aborted negotiations with the Labour Party last December was the specific issue of ministerial responsibility and the Ministers and Secretaries Act. It is flattering to myself, having had some small part in drafting the programme for Government put before the two parties at the time, that the current Government's programme endorses in every regard — full stops, commas and all — the proposals we made to our then partners in Government.
We will be very active in supporting any measures coming from any side to bring forward all of the public service reforms outlined by the Minister tonight. The Minister will have a very supportive ally on this side of the House. It is our intention, if we feel she is dragging her heels or some of her Civil Service colleagues do not see this in the same urgent light she sees it, to assist her with Private Members' legislation and we look forward to doing so.
Thank you Senator.
At the heart of our public administration system lies the theory of ministerial responsibility. It is a costly farce which has long since deserved to be consigned to the bin of unworkable administrative theories and ideas carried over from the Victorian era. In 1969, as the Minister pointed out, the report of the Public Service Organisation Review Group found that the doctrine of ministerial responsibility was the primary influence on the organisation of the Departments of State. Invariably, the doctrine sees the Minister as being the heart of the Department. All the acts of the Department are deemed to be the acts of the Minister. The Minister, with the exception of some well defined areas, is answerable to the Dáil for each and every action and every decision of the Department. The same report diagnosed the consequences of Ireland's adherence to this Victorian hangover as being an administration which is excessively centralised, secretive and bureaucratic in its nature; an administration where the top management is focused on day-to-day detail which would be handled at the most junior level in the private sector; an administration where planning and strategic thinking is continuously displaced by more mundane matters and, above all, an administration where communications between the administration itself, the public and the press are not as open as they should be in a modern democracy.
The Public Service Organisation Review Group also recognised that ministerial responsibility was largely a fiction and that "with the complexity of administration and the mass of detail to be covered it would be impossible for any Minister to have direct personal knowledge of all operations of his department". We have 15 Ministers and in excess of 35,000 civil servants. It is a farce to suggest that every Minister should have detailed knowledge and personal responsibility, as opposed to answerability in the broader sense, for the actions of each and every civil servant. It is time that we as politicians accepted that it was a farce and stopped using the farce, as we all do, when it suits us.
One of the most interesting speeches in the Dáil last week may have been made by the Minister herself, suggesting that the legal interpretation traditionally given to ministerial responsibility was excessively restrictive. I wholeheartedly agree with the Minister and would go further in saying that not only is it excessively restrictive but that the interpretation which is being given to ministerial responsibility — to the concept since 1924 of the Minister as a corporation sole — is wrong. It has suited many people within the administration and many of us within politics to go along with this wrong-headed interpretation.
The way we have traditionally interpreted the doctrine is also highly costly. Not only has it meant that top management has been deflected from planning to day to day matters, but it has also had other direct impacts. It has resulted in our Civil Service being excessively secretive, unwilling to be open with information, becoming decidedly non-client in its approach and being regarded as a hostile area for the public. It has also resulted in our Civil Service being costly in financial terms because simple decisions pass through many costly layers of administration before they are made.
It is also, of course, costly in political terms. Irish political clientelism is directly related to the close nature of our State institutions. There is another cost. Matters which have nothing to with politics become politicised. We had a number of interesting examples of the latter in the last 12 months; and if we went back over the last 12 years, when different parties were on different sides of the other House, we would have seen many other examples. For example, in the Galmoy affair a particularly narrow view of ministerial responsibility was taken by Opposition spokespersons. That debate took place a quarter of a century after the publication of the Devlin report. Twenty-five years after the publication of the PSORG the extraordinary thing is that politicians who should have known better, and press commentators who did know better, were, for the convenience of the motion, reverting to an interpretation of the concept of ministerial responsibility that did not even apply when Queen Victoria was a girl in order to give a little stick to a Minister who found himself in some difficulties at that time. I have no doubt that if the boot were on the other foot in the Lower House right now, you would find equally perverse views of ministerial responsibility being taken.
The nonsense which we witnessed at that time is not good for politics or public administration. If those who were trumpeting for Deputy Brian Cowen's head at that time had really cared a fig for public administration they would and should have used the affair — particularly when a civil servant made a public commentary at the time — as an opportunity to re-open the debate. Instead it was used, as we all characteristically use it, as a stick to punish a political opponent.
At the end of the year the Smyth affair was even more extraordinary. When we come to think of the whole Whelehan-Smyth affair we will see that it is a watershed in political terms, not just because of the events themselves but because it will rank on a par with the Critchell Down case in the history of public administration with regard to how we interpret ministerial responsibility. Like the Critchell Down case, it illustrated how a politician who could not conceivably have known of the existence of a particular thing — in that case the Duggan file lying in a civil servant's drawer — was ultimately answerable for that action. As politicians we are all vulnerable to be answerable for things beyond our control if this farce of ministerial responsibility is continued. It is right and proper that politicians should answer for those things they are involved in, for the policies they produce, but it is not right that accidents of the moment should become the basis for political head-hunting exercises. I do not say that while standing on any high moral ground, because there has been an awful lot of political standing on high moral ground in recent years. We all do it when it suits us and I am suggesting that it is time we got this farce out of the way.
Another clear problem is that ministerial responsibility has operated as a dead hand on the abundance of ingenuity that operates within the Civil Service. Politics has suffered badly because of the way we interpret ministerial responsibility, but so too has public administration. There is a huge amount of genius, a huge number of extraordinarily capable people within the Civil Service who are continuously impeded from moving forward and fully achieving all they can. It is wrong that top management in the Civil Service should be ensnared in day to day activities. It is perverse to have Ministers answering petty questions in the Lower House.
Senator Manning will know that at one time I was a collector of odd parliamentary questions. One of the oddest arose many years ago when a Parliamentary Secretary in the Department of Finance was asked for an explanation of the colour that the DVO offices were painted in Naas. What a waste of public time. What an absolutely perverse application of the concept of ministerial responsibility. Among my collection there was also a parliamentary question about the crown ewe population in the Bourne Vincent Memorial Park. Politicians who use the parliamentary system, which derives from the concept of ministerial responsibility, in that way do not deserve to be taken seriously, and it is clear that they do not take the whole process of Government seriously.
Ministerial responsibility is a farce at the heart of public administration. I agree wholeheartedly with everything the Minister has said, but I would make one point which is not in any sense pugnacious or to undermine the Minister. In her speech the Minister made the point about needing to study the matter and looking into the legal ambiguity. I suggest to the Minister and the public servants present that there is no ambiguity about this matter at all. Since the foundation of this State we have established over 60 executive agencies. Many of those non-commercial State-sponsored bodies, as the Devlin report pointed out, are by regulation simply hiving off areas which otherwise would have been dealt with within the Civil Service.
In the period immediately after the Devlin report the kind of study which the Minister mentioned was undertaken by senior personnel and was at least the subject of discussion among senior civil servants at that time. I respectfully suggest to the Minister and the Department that they should not waste any time trying to consider how many administrative angels can dance on the head of a pin. The narrow, conservative interpretation — to use the Minister's own words — is not relevant. The reality is that the Ministers in this Government should do as has been done in the last few years in the Department of Social Welfare, and make a conscious effort to identify stand-alone executive areas of their Departments. If necessary they should make the required ministerial orders and simply set them up as an Aireacht or executive units as envisaged in the Devlin report. If that approach is adopted, always provided that the public interest is defended — and it is, because we have an Ombudsman — you will find willing support from this side of the House. I welcome the Minister to the House and look forward to working with her over the next few years. I am sorely tempted to use the "Q" word but I will resist the temptation this time.
Do resist.
It is gone from the Minister's vocabulary.
I welcome this important motion. However, much of the ground was covered last week during the debate on the appointment of the two extra Ministers of State. I welcome the Minister of State. She was in the House before and has no intention of coming back. I wish her the best of luck in her new portfolio. I have no doubt she will do a marvellous job there. She knows the work ahead of her. For many years she was involved in local authorities; she knows the health boards and was a Junior Minister in the Departments of the Environment and Finance. She knows the area well and the portfolio we are discussing tonight suits her. I have no doubt she will do a very good job.
At the end of the Minister's speech, in relation to the Child Care Act, she mentioned that there were duplications between the Departments of Health, Justice and Education. Senator Quinn mentioned the duplication between the Departments of Transport, Energy and Communications and the Environment. I am delighted the Minister said this Government intends to co-ordinate those areas. She addressed that in her speech when she said:
This is a radical agenda. When implemented it will transform the organisation of the Civil Service, it will clarify and, if necessary, redefine the respective roles of the Ministers and civil servants and finally, it will accord significant additional financial autonomy to Departments.
That is very welcome.
The Minister mentioned working smarter not necessarily harder which is what it is all about. Nobody knows that better than she because, as I said, she was a member of the local authority and a Junior Minister. I have no doubt she will address those matters.
The Minister also mentioned the drafting of an administrative procedures Act. It will vest in the Office of the Ombudsman monitoring and regulatory functions aimed at ensuring that the citizen gets the best possible service every time he or she has dealings with the various branches of our public administration. It is also proposed to review the legislation underpinning the Ombudsman with the object of extending the remit of the office. Exemptions from that office's powers will be given specific attention.
I pointed out last week that in 1992 there were 3,500 complaints from the public to the Ombudsman. Senator Roche said that in 1979 Ray MacSharry had responsibility for this area of the public service. John Boland, a former Minister, initiated some reforms in the public service. He got rid of the hatches, with which we were all familiar, in motor taxation offices and in the health boards where officials dealt with the public.
The public should be treated as clients, not as just another problem. When we consider that the Ombudsman received 3,500 complaints from the public we realise there must be many more complaints out there. Most of the problems concerned the local authorities. I have no doubt the Minister will also address that area.
When I spoke last week I mentioned Braintree local authority on the outskirts of Essex. It is a small town in England but compared with our small towns, it is quite large with a population of 100,000. They were shocked when 5,000 people were put on the dole and the manager of the local authority decided that he would get working and put new ideas in place in the local authority. The Braintree local authority is now a model for all other local authorities throughout the UK. Business people come from all over England to examine the system in place there. I have no doubt that can be extended to all the local authorities in this country and to the public service because we need better services.
We need a more efficient and courteous public service because the people should get a civil answer when they ask about their entitlements. Their queries should not be put on the long finger. Members of the public should be made aware that when they make applications, they will get their entitlements; "pull" will not work. This would reduce the workload of public representatives because a third of our work is sorting out problems for people who are not entitled to that for which they have applied and, at the end of the day, we are not able to help them. If they could get that information straight from the public service or local authority, it would be easier for them and for us.
Senator Lee said there was not a great awareness among the public about reform of the local authorities and the public service. In my experience there is a great awareness among the public about the public service and the local authorities and reforms to make them more open and customer friendly. I have no doubt the Minister will address this matter. She has the experience and ability to do so.
I congratulate her again. I know she will do an excellent job and we look forward to the reforms she mentioned.
As others have said, it is a great pleasure to welcome the Minister to this House which she once ornamented so effectively with her fine rhetorical flourishes and her considerable knowledge of the brief with which she was charged. On a number of occasions I remember in particular listening with great interest to her on the subject of agriculture. She was a very effective speaker in this House on a great variety of subjects. It is a pleasure to welcome her back to one of her old haunts.
Thank you.
I regret that I was not here last week because I would certainly have taken part in that debate. I might have said some things that might not have made the Minister smile. I would not have voted against the Government on that occasion but I probably would have abstained. An argument could have been made about the amendment of this Act, that it could be viewed quite cynically. However, that was a matter for last week and I will leave it where it belongs — in the history books.
This legislation is 70 years old, and I am sure others referred to that fact. It is now so encrusted with amendments that they more or less outweigh the initial document. That suggests that it is clearly time for a complete overall because the circumstances have changed.
This was a new emerging State with a comparatively small Civil Service and bureaucratic element. We have now developed into a significant member of the European Community with a much more sophisticated network of bureaucracy. I use that term in its clinical application and not as a term of abuse because I believe government can be well served by an adequate and efficient bureaucracy.
I have nothing against bureaucrats nor have I anything against the Civil Service or the public service. By and large, they give us excellent public service. From time to time there is tension between the political executive and the Civil Service, for a number of reasons. Tennyson wrote the poem about the river which stated that "For men may come and men may go, but I go on forever." Politicians, political heads of Departments and Ministers may come and go, but the Civil Service tends to continue forever and may be required to apply fairly dramatic changes in policy with apparent loyalty and ease of heart, although I have no doubt it urges and advises what it considers to be wiser cautions on the Minister. Often a good strong Minister, with a mind of his or her own, can do the State good service by overriding that advice. One should always listen to advice, carefully sift it, take it into consideration and then, if necessary and for good reasons which can be made available to the public, ignore the advice proffered.
I remember on one occasion in this Chamber arguing strongly for an amendment with a Minister of the last Government. The civil servants were whispering in his ear, telling him I was wrong and that he could not accept it. However, he said that his civil servants advised him I was wrong, that he could not do this, but he was the Minister and he was going to do it. I felt that was what this Chamber was about, pushing through amendments, sometimes in the face of advice from civil servants. In certain Departments that advice can occasionally be disastrously inadequate, out of date and misleading. I have had experience of that as well, although not too often. On the other hand, I am sure there were many occasions when the people sitting behind the Minister had to restrain their smiles at my inadequacy, inaccuracy and the misleading and ill-informed nature of my contribution.
I was interested in what the Minister said about co-ordinating departmental functions because too often, as the Minister indicated, Departments exist in watertight boxes. In particular, she instanced an Act in which I have an interest, the Child Care Act, because of the spread of responsibility between the Department of Health, the Department of Education and the Department of Justice. When that Bill was going through this House — I think the Minister was here at the time and played a significant role in that debate — I put forward an amendment which was technically out of order, but the Minister showed his wisdom and flexibility by putting it forward as a Government amendment. It had to go back to Cabinet because it was a new section introducing guardian ad litem into the Child Care Bill. However, for a variety of reasons, principally involving finance, that section has never been fully activated.
One finds that Government can operate like another of my hobby horses, Dublin Corporation and the public utilities and services. For example, they dig up the roads, followed by Bord Gáis, the ESB and Telecom Éireann, although each is a different responsibility. There is no co-ordination, even at the level of local government, about what happens in that simple matter of digging up the roads and then repairing the road surface, so one is often left in limbo. That seems to be bureaucratic paralysis. If the review of the Ministers and Secretaries Act, 1924, can lead to cutting out such bureaucratic paralysis, which is not necessarily all the time the responsibility of the immediate civil servants but is a result of the way in which Departments are organised, then so much the better.
There is also a certain tension between the accountability of Ministers, on the one hand, and the traditional anonymity of civil servants. Both must be looked at because, as was quoted in the Minister's speech from the Devlin report, the idea of total ministerial responsibility for every action taken in Departments is a polite fiction. These are the kind of fictions which are not seen politely by the public and they add to the public's cynicism about public office and politics in this country. It is not accurate to say that Ministers are always responsible, although sometimes they must take the fall. But they are not always responsible and when they try to wriggle, it looks bad as far as the public is concerned. They should be able to say that a decision was taken further down the line and, although they accept technical responsibility if necessary, they did not make that decision.
On the other hand, there is the question of the inconsistent application of these rules — for example. Cabinet confidentiality, which was the subject of a contentious law case and was supposed to be signed, sealed and delivered and over which people got into serious trouble. Then during the recent crisis, Cabinet confidentiality went out the window and people were leaking like sieves all over the place. In addition, we have a curious situation where in the Galmoy dispute a civil servant, apparently at his own prompting, appeared at a press conference in order to give an explanation of a certain situation. That breaches a principle. There is total inconsistency.
I remember sitting in the Dáil Gallery and listening, for example, to one of the debates which took place during the recent controversy and hearing a reply, which I think was drafted by a civil servant who has been widely named, Mr. Russell, and which was put on the record. It appeared to specifically finger and name a Deputy on the Opposition benches, Deputy Barrett, and attach around his neck responsibility for an amendment to the 1965 Act, which he immediately and totally disclaimed in the Chamber. It seems rather strange that an anonymous — at least at that point — civil servant should be in a position to finger a politician, whereas the politicians were expected not to name anybody. Some senior civil servants appeared at the recent inquiry.
Although I am allowing latitude, you have one minute left.
I cannot imagine how that happened because I am an economical speaker.
I was struck by the deference shown by the politicians and I was thunderstruck at the use of language. Mr. Whelehan, for example, not only expected to be vindicated, but required it before the evidence was heard. The deference shown to Mr. Mansergh was quite extraordinary. The peasant mentality has not died out in this country. If there were hats and forelocks, they would have been doffed and touched, perhaps because of public school accents.
I am in favour of accountability, openness and open Government and I look to this Government to produce that desired effect. I believe, knowing the personnel involved, that we stand at least a sporting chance of that happening.
I join with the other speakers in welcoming the Minister back to the Seanad. I am pleased to have the opportunity to debate this issue tonight and I thank the Independent Senators for giving us the opportunity. It is an appropriate topic at this time. As other speakers said, we are dealing with old legislation, dating back to 1924, which has been amended numerous times. However, it is appropriate to look at it and to bring it into the modern age.
As Senators said, many changes have taken place, particularly in the light of our membership of the EU, and our society and the way we administer our Government and legislation has changed dramatically. Departments have adapted to that change in the way they have formed and reformed, and responsibilities have changed in accordance with changing needs. It is appropriate to discuss this issue today. I am convinced there is a strong political will to implement the change which the Minister has read out from A Government of Renewal, particularly in relation to the reform of the Ministries and Secretaries Act, 1924, and specifically in relation to defining the difference between policy and Executive functions as between ministerial and departmental responsibility. I accept the point others made that this is not an exact science. One cannot be absolutely certain of how these things can overlap. Nevertheless, it is essential to define them as well as we can. We should also bring modern management techniques into the Civil Service; this is a direct responsibility of the Minister. Terms like “quality management” are well known to people in business and it is appropriate to apply that approach to the Civil Service, because it is a large business, one which is in the ownership of the people.
We are answerable to the people and should not forget that. Article 6 of the Constitution states:
All powers of government, legislative executive and judicial, derive, under God, from the people, whose right it is to designate the rulers of the State [.]
We must bear that in mind continually. When we talk about openness, accountability, transparency and other buzz words, we mean we are accountable to the people of Ireland and we have to be seen to be accountable. There must be maximum access to information. People must know what is happening in Government and we must ensure it is run with maximum efficiency. In that context the promise to reform this Act goes hand in hand with other reforms such as the Ethics in Public Office Bill, the Electoral Reform Bill, reform of the Office of the Attorney General and Cabinet confidentiality and freedom of information. All these aspects are part of one package and will be introduced in that way. In fairness, during the previous Administration when my party was in Government with Fianna Fáil there was a great deal of movement in that direction also. This should not be seen as the property of any party or parties. Throughout the House there is an interest in this area and a determination to bring about reform.
Other speakers have referred to the Devlin report and other studies on this issue. We should acknowledge the work of the Institute of Public Administration in this area. That body has done much work towards keeping public administration up to date.
Senator Lee made many good points in his introductory contribution about not getting into a bureaucratic groove or continuing to do things simply because one has been doing them; rather one should be able to use imagination and initiative and allow the public service to move forward. As he also said, this must be done as a co-operative venture rather than imposing a way of doing things on public servants and the public service without consulting or working with them, or consulting the unions representing public servants. This is an important aspect of reform.
I wish to make a strong defence of our programme managers because they have been much maligned over the last few years. Our party has also been much maligned for introducing the concept of programme managers, but it has been taken on board by all sides now. They are an important part of this plan. Ministers make policy decisions in Cabinet which are implemented in consultation with the public service. The programme manager works between the formulation and the implementation of the policy. We should congratulate programme managers for the work they have done. Their role will continue indefinitely.
The Minister will be responsible for the system known as the strategic management initiative, which has been mentioned. This will involve setting out objectives, ensuring they are carried out in an efficient way, having targets, monitoring progress, etc. The House had discussed motions on this matter, especially in relation to the Department of Enterprise and Employment. The best possible models and standards will be used and everyone in the Civil Service will welcome that.
The same applies to people in local government. Many people referred to local authorities and many of us are members of those bodies. A desire to reform that area has been mentioned. I would support any moves to bring local communities into the decision making process.
Many speakers mentioned the need to co-ordinate across Departments. In the area of child care it is necessary to co-ordinate the Department of Health, the Department of Education and the Department of Social Welfare. There are many other examples. Some Members met a number of groups today representing the physically disabled, whose concerns range across the Department of Health, the Department of Education and the Department of the Environment. Another organisation, Barnardo's, is interested in the child care area and their concerns range across a number of Departments. The integration of the tax and social welfare systems is also under review, which again involves cross-departmental work.
These are indications of how times have changed and how we need to adapt our methods to those changes. Now more than ever we require Ministers, especially Ministers of State, to work across Departments and co-ordinate development so it is of optimum benefit to the people we represent, which is the basic requirement. We should not be stuck in bureaucratic grooves just because they exist. We should be willing to change, to be innovative and above all to be accountable, which is the buzz word. The people who elect us should get not only maximum value but should know what is happening and what decisions are being made in their name.
I support the proposal by the Independent Senators. I welcome the role the Minister will be performing and I wish her well in her duties.
I join with Senators in welcoming the new Minister to the Seanad. I am glad to hear her say she enjoyed her days here. She is now back in the Dáil, which is——
A good example.
——a good example to the rest of us indeed, Senator Manning. I compliment Senator Lee and the Independent Senators on this motion, which is timely. The Minister has probably the most important role in the Government because for far too long we talked about major reform of the public service but nothing has happened. Reform of the public service must go hand in hand with reform of the Oireachtas and the electoral system.
I will quote from a speech made by the former Taoiseach, the late Seán Lemass, in 1961 in which he addressed this topic. Before doing so I should say that from my experience of five years in a Department, I found that the quality of people in the public service was second to none. It was far higher than I believed before I worked directly with public servants. However, many fine public servants have their abilities stifled by the archaic structures in which they operate. We should remind ourselves that although we are dealing with an Act dating from 1924, the Ministers and Secretaries Act, it is an archaic and Victorian system of Government which operates in Ireland. It is past the time for change.
The late Seán Lemass said:
Sometime ago I spoke of making every Department of the Government into a development corporation in the particular field of national activity entrusted to it. I had then in mind the bringing about of a change of attitude and outlook amongst civil servants, a new psychological approach to the Government's development responsibilities, rather than matters of organisation, but all experience teaches that the right kind of organisation can help in developing the right attitudes. Can we feel certain that the present structure of our civil service tends to encourage the right attitude?
I think it is true to say that in some Government Departments there is still a tendency to wait for new ideas to walk in through the door. It is, perhaps, the normal attitude of an administrative Department of Government to be passive rather than active, to await proposals from outside, to react mainly to criticism or to pressure of public demand, to avoid the risks of experimentation and innovation and to confine themselves to vetting and improving proposals brought to them by private interests and individuals rather than to generate new ideas themselves.
That speech was made in 1961; the same speech could be written today. Lemass goes on to outline his desire to make fundamental changes in the public service. Unfortunately, no major action has been taken by anybody since his passing with the exception perhaps of John Boland, who made a serious attempt to reform the public service, and Noel Dempsey.
If the Minister is to make a success of the task with which she has been entrusted she must opt for fundamental reform. She must bring modern management techniques to the public service. She must do away with the Victorian pyramid system of responsibility which does not work in the modern age. Indeed, we have seen many examples of how the system has failed. Although I agree that the programme managers have been successful, I believe they were introduced purely in an attempt to deal with a symptom of the problem rather than with the problem itself. There is a fundamental distrust between civil servants and politicians although it will not be found in day to day dealings with individual civil servants. The reality is, however, that if that distrust did not exist programme managers would not be required — civil servants would be able to do the job.
In my dealings with civil servants I found people who were extremely talented — as Lemass said, "the best brains in the country"— but they had been totally switched off by the bureaucratic archaic system within which they worked. The attitude was why should one take a chance when the person who takes it easy all day will probably end up the best off. That attitude has changed as a result of new systems of promotion and so forth. However, among the 35,000 civil servants there is no reason for the vast majority of them to put their backs out, as it were, because there is no great reward for doing so. If I were a middle grade civil servant I would feel exactly the same.
The only way to change and improve that attitude is to introduce modern management techniques where responsibility becomes far more important. When I was a Minister of State at the Department of Education the files I received were signed and counter-signed by three and probably four civil servants — the person who drew up the report, his or her superior who initialled it and possibly made a change in it, the next superior and the next. I often spoke to the person who was perhaps the first or second to sign the report. That person was usually top class in every respect: highly educated with possibly a master's degree. When I asked the person why it was necessary to go through that procedure and why he or she did not take the decision the answer was always the same —"we do not take decisions here, we pass them up". The Minister, supposedly, takes them but, of course, I never did because they were more than likely already taken.
Unless the Minister introduces the type of management structure or technique to be found in private industry she will not be successful. If one compares the staffing situation in the banks with that in the Civil Service one can see the difference. The industrial psychology that applies in some of the American industries located here, such as Intel, and the industrial psychology applied in, for example, the Department of Education are absolutely worlds apart.
The other fundamental problem is that the present system leads to the type of difficulties we have seen in recent months where ministerial responsibility means that the Minister is responsible while, nine times out of ten, it is impossible for the Minister to keep an eye on everything that is happening. Consequently, the bureaucracy involved in decision making is a serious hindrance to progress. The result more often than not is that no progress is made. Indeed, civil servants who are anxious to get on with the job and see progress are often stunted by their inability to get in to see a Minister or to be promoted.
The final difficulty I wish to mention is that which exists in the public service vis-a-vis the Oireachtas. Politicians will be unable to reform the public service properly until we reform the electoral system and the Oireachtas. The current electoral system is the primary problem in this country. Until such time as we change to the single seat transferable vote system politicians will continue to worry about going to funerals and being messengers. That affects the Dáil and Seanad where our priorities, by and large, are to function as messengers for our constituents rather than as legislators which should be our most important function in the context of the public servants we employ to help us carry out our role.
The man who was probably our finest politician identified the problem in 1961. Many of us have talked about it since then but none of us has done anything about it. The Minister has a major task and I wish her the best of luck with it. I sincerely hope she makes progress. When she does this country will move forward in leaps and bounds.
I wish to compliment the Independent Senators on giving us an opportunity to debate this motion. I welcome the motion for two reasons: first, it is intrinsically worthwhile and, second, it does not require a vote which makes life easier on this side of the House.
I welcome the Minister. This is the second time in the last 24 hours I have had the opportunity to listen to her outline different aspects of her job and how she intends to approach it. Having heard what she had to say I believe our decision last week to emphatically endorse her appointment will be vindicated. I was particularly taken by the Minister's clear jargon free approach. She laid out in a clear and straightforward way the problems as she saw them and how she intends to tackle them.
However, one unworthy thought struck me: if all these changes take place what will happen to the Civil Service we all knew and loved? In particular, what will happen to the Civil Service that provided many fine writers over the years, much of whose writing must have been done while they probably should have been dealing with drains and sewerage and so forth? I am thinking of people such as Myles na gCopaleen, Conor Cruise-O'Brien who wrote some marvellous historical essays while in the Department of External Affairs, the poet Val Iremonger, the Joycean scholar John Garvin and the historian Leon Ó Broin. These people produced work of the highest quality while they were senior members of the Civil Service.
There probably is no longer a civil servant like the late Myles na gCopaleen who would arrive to the Customs House with two hats — he would throw one hat on the hatstand while he slipped out wearing the other hat to refresh himself after the rigours of the previous evening. A story is told of him arriving in one morning to the late John Garvin, who was his boss. There was a strong smell of drink and Garvin told him: "You smell of stale drink. Go out and come back when there is a smell of fresh drink from you." The day of that type of Civil Service has gone forever. We are clearly at the beginning of a brave new world in that regard.
I was struck by a number of points in the debate this evening. The first was the recognition of a central aspect to Civil Service reform — the Minister spoke about it last night and she was reminded of its importance by people in the audience — and that is that it is not "them v. us”, it must be a joint effort, and that there is a recognition that there is a strong will to reform the system within the Civil Service itself, which must be channelled, and for obvious reasons. People want career opportunities and they want to be rewarded and recognised for work done. There has to be a distinction between those who simply serve their time and those who make a real effort, and there must be the possibility within reform of recognising this will for real change, which the Minister strongly recognised. No worthwhile reform will take place if there is a conflict situation, if it becomes them versus us, and I am pleased that the Minister also recognises this.
The Minister mentioned the aspect of co-ordination, another point which is important, and increasingly so. Only today we were discussing on the Order of Business the question of flooding. Flooding is an act of God in one way, but there is also a range of factors which have made our present situation much worse. However, clearly the different Departments involved in tackling this problem are not co-ordinated and have not been co-ordinated. Co-ordination is increasingly important for problems such as this, or such as child care, which can go across the spectrums of our entire lives.
There was a point I made last week, and a phrase I used which was not meant to be offensive, but there is an extraordinary need for strong second tier leadership, where Ministers of State will lead the task of co-ordinating and leading in these specific areas. In this respect Senator O'Sullivan mentioned the problem of local government, which is not within the Minister's brief. However, it is necessary that the question of local government reform be placed high on the agenda as it is not there at present. We do not have meaningful local government. Hopefully, when the Minister has tackled this job, we will address this issue.
Senator O'Sullivan also mentioned the work of the Institute of Public Administration, and I concur with her remarks. Over the years the IPA has been pioneering the way in introducing the ideas for Civil Service reform, and this has often not been fully recognised. Senator Fahey referred to Seán Lemass, and I would not disagree with a word he said. But the work of people such as Tom Barrington, Des Roche and others in the IPA over a long period of time, often in a hostile and indifferent climate, must be recognised. Doubtless the Minister will do so in many of the ideas which she will be implementing.
I was especially pleased tonight by the number of references to former Minister John Boland. One is always careful in praising John Boland, because one never knows quite what the reaction will be. Senator Lee made the point that administrative reform is not a popular, vote catching exercise. It may be the most important part of Government, but it gets very few votes and can make many enemies. Of all Ministers in recent times, John Boland displayed great courage and vision in grasping some of the most thorny issues in public service reform, and little thanks he got for it. In addition, some of the most innovative ideas of recent times have come from him.
I do not intend to begin the beatification process of John Boland tonight, but, as in all matters of history and so forth, a person will often be recognised only after they have left office. It is a good thing tonight therefore that, across the floor of the House, tributes were made to the courage and the vision of John Boland as a reforming Minister for the Public Service.
Senator O'Sullivan asked for a little humility on the question of programme managers.
No humility, just acknowledgement.
I will give her a large dose of it if she likes, because the idea of programme managers was savaged, unfairly in many ways. It was an idea which has been around for some time and is a normal feature of Government in most European countries where there is the Chef de Cabinet, or whatever it is. I have been turned down by the Government in my attempt to make Senator Cosgrave my programme manager, but I will keep trying. However, it is an important idea and I am happy to put it on the record.
I am pleased that the Minister has this job, that she is the person who has it. She has the right qualities, she is not hampered by any false sense of modesty or diffidence and she will not be shy in putting forward her point of view. However, she also has enormous qualities of tact, endurance and stamina which will also be required for the job. I wish her well, I know she will be successful and I thank the Independent Senators for giving us an opportunity to discuss this most important issue.
I join with my colleagues in welcoming the Minister, Deputy Doyle back to the House, but in her elevated position, and I wish her well. I heartily endorse the comments which have been made regarding her brief, difficult and widespread as it is. I am sure that it has been a cause of wry comment around the country, and in her own circles perhaps, that whenever she will be addressed in the future it will cause enormous difficulties for those not acutely aware of protocol to have to go through the whole gamut of the Minister's titles. However, it is not the title which the Minister is concerned with, but the function of her position, and in that I wish her well. If I were to look into a crystal ball, which one hears or reads about in fairy stories, and ask it to tell me who it is that should be the person to go into the public service and sort it out, it would come up with the Minister's name, so it was a good choice in that respect.
I am especially interested in the areas outlined in the Minister's speech to which she intends to devote her period in office. These include legislation to open up public access to official information, improvements in physical access to information, rights for both able bodied citizens and those with disabilities, an overhauling of the facilities available for community information, building on a network already in existence in the voluntary and statutory sectors, and so on.
I pause there. Perhaps in that context the Minister will consider utilising the public library system more effectively than at present. It has been part of the policy of the Library Association of Ireland for some time that the public perception of the public libraries — and perhaps even the official perception of them — is that they are simply lending libraries, in that if one wishes to borrow a book that is where one goes. However, the range of services which they provide and the whole emphasis of their service has changed dramatically over the past number of years, especially in recent times with the advent of modern technology. Public libraries are now a focal point for communities. However, they are underfunded, undercapitalised, and yet in many cases, especially in areas of social disadvantage, they are like a beacon of light, not only in an educational but also a social context. The library is the place to which people will go if they wish to acquire community information on various activities taking place in their area. It is also the place one will attend if one wishes to learn a foreign language or to seek general information of a reference nature.
In the overall thrust of the Minister's brief, as it applies to the specific area of utilising the community and voluntary sector, the Minister might consider ways of involving the public library system and making its role, as it is currently defined, more central. Indeed, the definition and role of the public library system may be a starting point. In this respect, Mr. Boland was the first Minister to update the 1947 legislation on libraries, which had been in force from that time. This was the first major piece of legislation of its kind since the foundation of the State, because the system had been inherited from the British administration. The amount of legislative reform in the public libraries area is substantial — and it is something the Minister's officials will advise her on — but I urge her to consider it in the wider context of the community and voluntary sector.
In trying to come to terms with Senator Lee's motion and the context in which it was framed, including the historical context — the Ministers and Secretaries Act, 1924 — it is interesting that much of the controversy that arose over the last few months as to the role and function of civil servants vis-a-vis their relationship with Ministers and the collective responsibility concept of Ministers in Cabinet were aspects of the Act which did not, it appears, exercise the minds of our predecessors in either House. They were more concerned — and perhaps it is not all that strange in view of the debate in the House last week — about extra jobs for boys and girls and extra money being incurred by the State, even to the extent of calling for the abolition of several Ministries rather than for the creation of new ones. There was, for example, a call for the abolition of the Department of External Affairs, as it was then known; in fact, it was also know as the publicity Department. Members of both Houses at that time felt that it was serving no useful function and should be abolished.
There was also severe criticism of the creation of legislation to allow seven new Parliamentary Secretaries; how times have changed. There was also a great deal of discussion in relation to section 8, which was the creation of a military council. Those were the areas in which they involved themselves, not the areas which the Minister of State identified or which have arisen in this debate today. From that point of view, we have advanced considerably. It is long past time that the machinery of Government was overhauled. If that was the thinking at that time, and if that has been the consequence of that thinking over the last 50 or 60 years, then there are an enormous number of cobwebs in the public service which have to be swept away. That is no reflection on the Civil Service which, as has been remarked here, has been quite outstanding. I can only endorse those remarks.
Without going into any further detail, I welcome the Minister of State's appointment and the aspects of her appointment which impinge on the areas which we have discussed. I am sure she will return during her term in office to update us on how she is getting on. I look forward to contributing to that debate.
This important motion is asking to expedite an item in the Government programme, A Government of Renewal. It is great to see that there is such unanimity on this question. It occurred to me, as everybody was speaking, that if the Minister of State had come here last Thursday we might not have had such an acrimonious debate in this Chamber.
Reform of the 1924 Ministers and Secretaries Act is just one of the measures needed to reform institutions and procedures which still largely have their roots in the 18th and 19th centuries, a time when Government trickled down from the top. Much play was made in the other Chamber about openness, accountability and transparency, mainly, of course, by those who when in Government themselves were anything but open, transparent and accountable.
Government has mushroomed over the past two or three decades and generally that growth has been in the public interest. However, the growth of Government means that a plethora of individuals are now responsible for areas of Government which had not even been thought of in the 1920s, such as technology, tourism and social welfare, to name just a few.
Reforming the 1924 Ministers and Secretaries Act will give Ministers greater flexibility and ensure that the structures are put in place through which civil servants can account for their actions. However, reform of the Act must not be seen in isolation from other institutional reforms to which this Government is committed and to which my party, Democratic Left, is fully committed to supporting.
The referendum on Cabinet confidentiality is vital to ensure that citizens are not kept in the dark by those elected to govern. The freedom of information legislation will copperfasten the public's right to know, a right which is essential in any civilised democracy. Under the counter Government has been the norm for far too long. The carefully engineered leak and counter leak have become institutionalised. Freedom of information legislation will ensure that citizens have increased access to information in the possession of the State, both about themselves and the workings of Government. Access, however, is worth little unless it is free. In this regard, I hope that the public will not be charged a fee for information obtained under the forthcoming legislation.
For far too long, the interests of the public have been weighed against the interests of Government and, generally, the public has lost out. The reform outlined in the programme for A Government of Renewal will, I hope, result in a change in our political culture, a change which will ensure that democratic rights are not just exercised every few years at the polls.
I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I very much welcomed her speech but after Senator Manning spoke I was not quite so enthusiastic; we must go forward cautiously. I remembered the splendid literary work my friend, Hugh Leonard, did when he was a temporary clerk for 14 years in the Land Commission. He has assured me that his work for the Land Commission was not quite so splendid, which is why he never did the Irish exam so that he could be made permanent.
Last week when we were debating the legislation to approve the Minister of State's appointment and that of Deputy Carey, I was very taken by the fact that the Minister of State, Deputy Hogan, specifically put forward for Deputy Doyle the fact that the strategic management initiative within Departments was to be under her control. This is extremely important. I am delighted the Government decided to continue this initiative which was initiated by the last Government.
Great contributions can be made by all Departments if changes are made. This will, naturally, make a great contribution to national development, the provision of services for the public and the efficient and effective use of resources. It is important to remember that within the public service resources are more than money, they include the people who work there.
The Minister of State stressed, as did other Senators, the importance of co-ordinating work between Departments. This is one of the areas where there has been most waste. I hope to see much better co-ordination between Departments after the Minister of State's term in office. The strategic management initiative will examine existing practices to see how they can be improved. I am glad we have stressed evolution rather than revolution. This is an area where many people are looking forward to enthusiastically taking part in the solutions to the problems which exist.
I am glad John Boland was mentioned by so many speakers. I remember trying to deal with the Civil Service before John Boland did his initial work. It was impossible to get civil servants' names, it was as basic as that; when one telephoned an office they were not permitted to give their names. I remember even that change as being revolutionary.
Speaking as a member of the public service outside this House, I naturally have to accept the praise given to all of us tonight — that we are intelligent, hardworking, dedicated people. However, we could improve in some areas and I hope we will not be too resistant to change.
Senator Norris was right to refer to the committee which met in Kildare House. It gave us a very clear insight into a most important part of the Civil Service, the Attorney General's Office. As Senator Lee said, it was dreadful that people had so little time to think. The civil servant in charge of a file which was in a drawer for seven months said that if he had had three days he could have solved the problem, but he had no time to address it. Probably, in seven months a man of his calibre could have written a Ph.D. thesis on the entire policy regarding extradition in this country. It is most important that we try to straighten out these areas.
Every time I come into the Seanad I learn something, and this evening I learned something from the Minister of State. When we were talking about promoting policy matters and separating them from the executive, I was reading the speech and it referred to the doctrine of the Minister's corporate sole. I said to Senator Quinn, who is always my adviser in matters such as this——
He is the Senator's programme manager.
——that surely it should be "soul". He said "No" and started to explain the concept. I would like the Minister of State to also be the "corporate soul", to have time to add inspiration to the development of policy and so forth, and not for it to be just an executive function.
I am delighted to see the amount of work which she proposes to put in in these areas and I am sure she will take on many of the suggestions made by Senators here tonight.
Acting Chairman
Before I put the motion. I wish to join with the other Senators in welcoming the Minister of State back to the House. I remember her well. I wish her well in her new position.
Thank you.
Question put and agreed to.
Acting Chairman
When is it proposed to sit again?
I propose that the House adjourns, according to today's resolution, until 10.30 a.m. tomorrow and then, at the conclusion of that sitting, until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 9 February 1995.
Acting Chairman
Is that agreed? Agreed.