The issue of delivering better government concerns every citizen and taxpayer and should concern every Member of the Oireachtas. The manner in which government is delivered is vital from the point of view of obtaining value for taxpayers' money and achieving the best possible service for the citizens of the State.
On the last occasion we debated this issue I made the point that government is not user-friendly. It is user-hostile and is excessively centralised, secretive and bureaucratic. It is extraordinary that 30 years after the establishment of the Devlin committee, Irish government should be the subject of another study. It is also extraordinary that this study, carried out through the strategic management initiative, should reach precisely the same conclusions as the Devlin report 30 years ago. The basic conclusion of both studies is that there is a Victorian notion, nonsense or myth at the heart of government which involves the concept of ministerial responsibility. The nonsense that each Minister is aware, through his or her wisdom, of everything that occurs in every nook and cranny of their Department was never meant to be taken literally.
The notion of ministerial responsibility is taken literally in this country when it suits the politics of a situation. A little over 12 months ago the then Taoiseach was expected to resign because a senior public servant consigned a letter to a drawer in their desk. At present a similar dispute is taking place in relation to the Duncan extradition warrant. I submit that this type of political argument is facile, politically disruptive and damaging. We live in a State where people are not merely obliged to deal with an excessively centralised, bureaucratic and secretive administration, but one with which the vast majority of people feel they have no contact. There is a feeling of anonymity at the interface level and that people are not being served by the administration. This view is not unique to Ireland. There are problems in all developed economies with the relationship between the citizen and the state.
Some years ago Professor Dror of the Hebrew University listed challenges which he said faced public administration as we went into the final years of the century. He talked about an economic environment where resources are less abundant than in the past and a changed cultural environment where the public demands the right to participate in government. He talked about a growing sense of individual rights where people are no longer prepared to be told what to do by administrative bureaucrats without having some say in it. He talked about a growing and healthy tendency to question authority and a general disenchantment with government. He also spoke about the growing complexity of society and the external environment in which public administration exists. He said all of these and other reasons provide us with a rationale for ongoing examination of the administrative structures and reform strategies.
The reform strategies which we have adopted have been episodic in almost the same measure as they have been unsuccessful. Thirty years ago we put in place the Devlin team which produced a very fine report. For a variety of reasons, ranging from a lack of political will across the spectrum to senior administrative obscurantism and obstruction, the Devlin report was never put into operation. I remind the Minister of State of a very fine speech made at her party's Ard Fheis some years ago by John Boland, who had similar ministerial responsibilities to those of the Minister of State. He pointed out that the myth of a lack of political will did not stand up to examination. In 1977 the then Taoiseach gave commitments when he took office on the implementation of the Devlin report. His predecessor from the Minister of State's party had also given such commitments. However, those political commitments were obstructed by administrative activity.
The collapse of the Devlin report left us with a situation where we had a 19th century form of administration dealing with a growing variety of public services and an increasingly complex society. For that reason I appreciate and applaud the central proposition in this report. However, I suggest respectfully to the Minister of State that much more needs to be done. The central core of Senator McGowan's point this morning was the bureaucratic language of a letter which meant nothing at the end of the day. There is, unfortunately, too much jargon in this report.
A bigger lacuna in this report is that when the Devlin report collapsed in the 1970s and 1980s it was not unique in that regard. A variety of what were known as "grand reform strategies" collapsed around the world. The Fulton report was consigned to the waste bin in Britain. The Glasgow report went the same way in Canada. There were also problems in the United States with reform strategies. Out of that collapse an alternative view was taken which was the subject of an OECD paper in the mid 1980s. That paper suggested that rather than go for "grand reform strategies", it would be much more sensible and economical if governments pursued "selective radical strategies".
I wish to suggest to the Minister of State a number of reasons why that approach should be adopted. Second, if the Minister of State looks at the Programme for Government which her partners in Government and her party prepared, she will see selective radicalism outlined in it. I can say that with some confidence because the relevant ages were agreed between my party and the Labour Party in November 1994 and were obviously carried across into the negotiations by the Labour Party, which I welcome. They were good ideas when I wrote them down and I am pleased the current Government has gone along with them.
Selective radicalism suggests that maximum political attention would be focused on relatively short areas of administration. Second, we could reform key areas of our administration. Third, we could provide continued learning experience regarding administrative reform. Fourth, a strategy of selective radicalism would help the reformers, including the Minister of State, to keep an eye on what was happening and to make necessary changes.
It is unusual for a Member of the Opposition to suggest what should be done, what is missing and the areas the Minister of State might like to look at and address in the fuller implementation of this report. Over the last 30 years efficiency and effectiveness have been dealt with by our public administration. We have had personnel strategies; initiatives aimed at improving management competence; resource allocation and control strategies, from PPBS to zero base budgeting; the introduction of new technologies and disciplines; and a variety of other approaches. We should be focusing on the point — the interface — where the citizen and the State come into contact. There are political, economic and organisational benefits from such a focus.
The contact between the citizen and the administration is politically important because it represents the borderline between the citizen and the State. There is growing evidence the citizen of this State are not happy with how they have to deal with the administration in their day to day lives. Attitudes towards the institutions of State are very important, because if people have a negative attitude towards them they will not have a positive attitude towards the policies which any Government attempts to implement in the interests of the State.
There are economic benefits if we can avoid friction between the citizen and the State. It costs a great deal to fix a case which has gone wrong. The disruption in the House this morning is a case in point. An extremely badly worded letter from the Department of Social Welfare is causing mayhem for students who want to avail of that scheme, and in this House. The avoidance of friction pays dividends to the State.
A smooth relationship is also important in terms of how the people of the nation view politics as a whole, not just the political parties of the day, and how they accept the legitimacy of the Government and its processes. That is important in the Irish context because there is a vivid tradition here of being "agin" the Government. If everybody is "agin" the Government, there cannot be any cohesion in the implementation of public policy or any forward direction, and one is continuously stymied by artificial debates and disputes.
I referred earlier to an OECD paper which was published in the mid 1980s, and which suggested five alternative strategy areas which any reforming Government could look at. The areas ranged from very simple strategies to very complex ones.
