Vol. 571 No. 1
I move:
That Dáil Éireann resolves that payment of the remaining phases of benchmarking be suspended pending implementation of a serious reform package which would yield improvements in the quality of services delivered to the public, commensurate with the extra cost involved.
I wish to share my time with Deputies Kenny and Olivia Mitchell.
Is that agreed? Agreed.
The basic principle of benchmarking awards is the same as the principle under which Dunnes Stores operates – value for money. When the concept of benchmarking was proposed, Fine Gael supported the process as a way of bringing about major change in the provision of public services, and we confidently expected that the expenditure on benchmarking would reap rich benefits. How wrong we were. The Government did not involve benchmarking in an agenda for reform to deliver the necessary service improvements that are constantly demanded by those working in the public services. Fine Gael believes that the agreement reached by the Government is seriously flawed and it should re-negotiate the deal in the same manner as deals were re-negotiated previously and for which there is a precedent.
The implications of the benchmarking agreement for local authorities are horrendous because they will face a frightening funding shortfall of approximately €161 million arising from the benchmarking pay award. The full cost of the award will run to €1.2 billion when fully implemented. As of now, the Government has failed to indicate to local authorities how to fund this award.
The simple arithmetic is that, with local authorities employing almost 32,000 people or 13% of the 235,000 covered by the benchmarking process, the full year cost to them will run to approximately €161 million per year. This cost can only be made up by one or a combination of four options. One would be an increase in local charges for services. These would involve new development charges. I have heard that local authorities are considering new development charges for new house construction, with some floating the idea of €10,000 per unit. At a time when house prices are spiralling out of control, this would be the death knell of the hopes of many young people trying to buy their first homes. Increased local charges would also involve an increase in refuse collection charges, and I am sure councils would eventually be forced into considering charging for water supply.
Another option would be to increase rates for businesses, which would affect our competitiveness as a nation. Chambers of commerce have warned recently that businesses are being forced to close because of double digit increases in commercial rates at a time when inflation was running at 4% to 5%. The other options would be a reduction in services offered or job losses.
If local charges were increased to meet the cost of the benchmarking award, it would have the effect of imposing a charge of €125 per year on each of the 1.288 million private residences in the State. This fact puts the recent bin protests, where waste charges of €130 per annum were the norm, in stark focus. The benchmarking, in its current shape, will be the silent secondary charge on all services at local authority level.
The debate on value for money in benchmarking has at least thrown some light on what the Government deal is doing for the taxpayer. What has had little discussion is the manner in which benchmarking will quietly introduce another stealth charge on every household of €125 as local authorities desperately try to balance their books.
Since Fine Gael made its stance known on benchmarking, some of the largest councils, including Cork County Council, have stated that no funds are available to meet their benchmarking bill, which for Cork County Council will run to about €10 million per year. Meanwhile the taxpaying public continues to wait in vain to see what it will get for its money.
Local government has been damaged grievously in recent years by tribunals and allegations of corruption. Added to these problems has been the undermining of the fabric of local government by this Administration, the most recent example being the benchmarking award, a deal struck by the Government which is now dictating to local authorities that they must fund it despite having no hand, act or part in agreeing it.
The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, through the Protection of the Environment Act passed last July, removed from councillors the powers to set charges and gave them to city and county managers. Imagine the uproar if the Minister for Finance were to wash his hands of taxation policy, transfer it to the Civil Service and say he was no longer responsible for setting taxes. This is happening locally.
The Government has set a scenario in which it will continue to reduce its funding for local government and has ensured in recent legislative changes that its local agents, the city and county managers, will make up for this financial shortfall by raising charges locally. In other words, rates are being re-introduced. It is ironic that the Fianna Fáil Party, which abolished domestic rates in 1977, is re-introducing them through a wide range of new local charges.
What we are debating is the result of short-term political thinking for even shorter-term political gain and the type of self-serving political thinking for which Ireland is paying too high a price and which it finds it can no longer afford. Benchmarking, as constituted by the Government, is an example of strategic thinking coalition-style. It is strategic thinking that extends only to the next general election. That alone made it a bad deal when it was struck. That the benchmarking award is now to be paid in radically changed economic circumstances makes it all the worse.
Ireland has a €1 billion deficit. Growth in Irish business is almost nil. Inflation remains double the European average, the highest in the euro zone. One in four overseas managers has lost confidence in Ireland as a place to do business. By the end of the year, it is expected that there will be 45,000 job losses. The Taoiseach has warned of more on the way. Surely in the national interest it is time to shout stop and to suspend payment of the benchmarking awards pending a serious reform package being implemented that would yield real improvements in the quality of services delivered to the public to reflect the extra cost involved. That is what our motion proposes.
My colleagues will examine the details of the benchmarking agreement and its impact on key areas of the public service. I want to focus on the broader political issues this raises – the Government's refusal to govern, its abdication of responsibility and its abysmal failure to lead. Benchmarking, as constituted, is a brilliant insight into how the Government is running and ruining this country. As coined by the coalition, it reveals a political vision more in keeping with the government of a rogue state than of one soon to assume a defining role in modern international politics, namely, the Presidency of the European Union.
Through all the confusion on benchmarking one fact is clear. As constituted, it is a raw deal for everyone. It screws the taxpayer and, because it refuses to tackle real reform, it hamstrings the public service. Therefore, we all lose. As with many bad deals, the details of the award were devised in secret and kept secret. Bizarrely, the Government agreed to pay out money under Sustaining Progress for performance improvements already committed to, and possibly still outstanding, under an earlier agreement, the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness. Overall, benchmarking promised a great deal, but it demanded and, as far as the public can see, delivered nothing.
Ask anyone to name three specific improvements, in either the quantum or the quality of the public services for which they are paying under benchmarking, and they will be hard-pressed to name even one. That is not the fault of public servants, who are also taxpayers. The problem with benchmarking is not public servants but the Government. It promised a reward without a proper reform package that could be publicly scrutinised and quantified in return.
Benchmarking gave the coalition Government a brilliant opportunity to get our public services right and offered the perfect opportunity to reform bureaucratic systems which were strangling public servants, robbing the taxpayer and failing society. In these appalling systems doctors are being paid €8.5 million a year for ghost patients and 50% of cases before the District Courts are being struck out without a hearing. Through benchmarking, the Government could have tackled definitively these and other problems at the heart of our public service. Instead of tackling them, however, it chose to tolerate them and left the taxpayer and future Governments to pick up the tab for its "easy ride" mentality.
Every area of public life will suffer significantly through the payment of these awards of €1.2 billion. Just last week, as Deputy Allen pointed out, the Cork county manager warned that benchmarking would cost his council €10 million over the next year. Nationally, the deal will cost local authorities more than €160 million, forcing job losses, increases in service charges and cuts in services. We will all lose but it will be the general operatives and outdoor workers on whom the axe first falls.
County managers, the people at the public service coalface, are not even pretending that benchmarking will produce the improvements in public services the Government tells us are in the bag. Despite this, the benchmarking crisis – it is a crisis for the Irish economy – has done the State some service in that it shines a spectacular light on the politics of appeasement practised by the Government. The Government's politics seek to please all the people all the time. They are politics based on the maxim that one should never confront when one can dodge and never commit when one can fudge or, better still, when one can commission a report knowing one will sit on the results for months or years. Above all, they are the kinds of politics which state one should never be responsible or take blame. Whatever the crisis, it is never the fault of the Government. As the Taoiseach put it, if it is blame one is after, blame the state of the international markets or the Japanese yen.
Ireland is realising to its cost that it can no longer afford this kind of politics or Government. The price of both has become exorbitant, financially and morally, because, come January, it is not the Government that will pay the awards but the individual taxpayer. It will be the couples mortgaged to the hilt for the pleasure of living miles from their people and their jobs, the small business people letting staff go because of soaring insurance and the sick, hardworking, compliant taxpayer who is shipped from Beaumont Hospital to St Vincent's Hospital because a public health system screaming for reform has left the northside accident and emergency services unable to cope. Let there be no mistake, it is not the Government that will pay but ordinary people will pay dearly.
Election fever made the Government forget that, in this country at any rate, the primary reason for the existence of the public service is not to give employment, even though an additional 21,000 people were recruited to the public service ranks in the year before the general election. It exists to give the public the services they pay for in health, education, transport, security and so forth. In any properly functioning democracy, if the public is to pay more, they are entitled to know what they are getting in return.
By reducing benchmarking to a strategy of appeasement the Government has maligned our public servants. This is damaging to the public service, an already fragile public trust, public office and society. Thankfully for Ireland, however, many thousands of public servants want to work to the highest standards. In keeping with their sense of public duty they would welcome the chance to show how well they can do their jobs. They want the kind of reform which would recognise and reward their valuable contribution, make their jobs more satisfying, the services they deliver more effective and Ireland a better country in which to be born and learn and a better and happier place in which to work and live. They must, therefore, have found the Minister for Finance more intriguing than usual recently when he wrote in newspapers that under benchmarking in future greater emphasis would be placed on merit in Civil Service promotion. Surely promotion is based on merit or not at all. If this is not the case, it is no wonder that a 1999 study on the retention of staff in the Civil Service cited the absence of personal recognition as one of the key drivers in staff resignation. Lack of reform may well be driving our best and brightest out of our public service and still the Government stonewalls.
Our public servants are the people who make our world work. They deliver our babies, inspire our children, care for us when we are sick or old and keep us safe in our homes and on our streets. They have every right to be paid well but if they are to be paid more for, as we are told, doing more, the paying public has an equal right to see precisely what this entails. This is entirely reasonable and responsible.
There is, however, nothing of the kind in the Government action plans. However unpalatable this may be, one thing is sure, namely, incompetence or poor performance cannot and should not be paid for out of the public purse. To do so would be an abuse of our good public servants and the taxpayer. It would be corrosive to our public services, efficiency, quality of life, competitiveness and international credentials as a place to do business and an affront to our national dignity and integrity.
Based on the overall needs of the economy, particularly the competing demands for resources evident in areas such as crime, transport, health and education, the Fine Gael Party believes that the country cannot afford the annual cost of the €1.2 billion benchmarking process nor the €500 million benchmarking award due to be paid on new year's day. It is time to blow the whistle on the benchmarking framework devised by the Government which is not delivering to the taxpayer. Despite our best hopes, nothing has presented itself to show that these awards are justified. With just over 100 days to go until this massive payment is due, the Fine Gael Party is saying "Stop". The Government must go back to the drawing board, renegotiate a deal for the times and deliver a real reform agenda.
As far as the public is concerned, there is now no one in charge of the country. Time and again, the Taoiseach has refused to do what he was elected to do, that is, to lead. On benchmarking, in the name of the quiet people of this country I suggest he rouse himself at last and do so.
I wish to share time with Deputy O'Dowd.
Is that agreed? Agreed.
I support my colleagues and the Fine Gael Party motion which has been tabled not to accuse public servants, make political gain or embarrass the Government, or because we do not support benchmarking. We support a real benchmarking process, one which would reward those who improve their performance and deliver better services. The primary reason for tabling this motion is that we believe the issue is too important to ignore.
We are not discussing a normal negotiated pay round but a unique payment on top of the normal pay round to every one of the 300,000 public service workers in the State. While the first 25% of the award was paid unconditionally, the deal was that the next tranche, announced by the Minister tonight, would be delivered only in tandem with demonstrable improvements in the public services. It now transpires that this deal for the consumer was never negotiated or hammered down.
Rather than pursue a detailed and challenging reform agenda, the Government was content instead with a one-sided deal. The price paid was too large and has too many ramifications for everybody else to allow a responsible Opposition to stay silent and fail to bring the matter before the House and the public. It is our responsibility to raise the issue and ask where is the beef. The truth is there is no beef. The whole exercise of benchmarking has been nothing but flimflam, a shadowy illusion designed solely to get the Government over an immediate problem and a way of buying industrial peace in a summer which was already shaping up to be very difficult for it.
A one-sided deal would probably not have mattered so much if the Celtic tiger had continued to roar. The Government had already frittered a surplus of €5 billion and probably decided that another €1.2 billion would be hardly noticed. Suddenly, in the aftermath of the election, it was noticed and the figure became a significant amount of money. To put in context the sum involved, for ten years we discussed ad nauseam the Luas project, the cost of which is now put at about €800 million. The issue is raised in the newspapers every time there is a slow news day and is correctly discussed in the Houses, on the airwaves and in the streets, because €800 million is a significant sum of money. Benchmarking could pay the cost of 1.5 Luas projects in a single year.
There are two differences between Luas and benchmarking. The first is that with Luas we will have a physical, productive asset but after paying out €1,200 million under benchmarking we will have nothing to show for it. The other difference is that we will pay for Luas once, whereas we will pay benchmarking every year in perpetuity. We could have had an underground metro and paid for it in three years, even without the Spanish cavalry being brought in by Señor Brennan to show us how to do it. There are endless examples of what we could do with that type of money.
The Government would have people believe that this is an attack on public servants. It is anything but that. They are as much victims of benchmarking as the rest of us. What they are getting with one hand they are giving back with another through a range of stealth taxes introduced to pay for benchmarking. They are probably less well equipped to pay those stealth taxes than others, certainly than the self-employed who have the ability to vary their income by working harder or for longer. Public servants generally do not have that flexibility so they will bear the costs.
In the health area alone they have borne increased charges for beds, increased drugs charges and increased VHI premia. There are increased charges throughout every sector. Even then, however, the cost of benchmarking is so enormous that it is also being paid for by cutting many services. Stealth taxes alone will not even come close to balancing the books. Cuts in services impact on public servants and their families as much as on everybody else.
Health care workers want reform. Every health care worker I know or have ever spoken to knows there is a finite envelope of money to be spent on health. The Minister has said as much many times. To the extent that it goes to enhance the pay of existing workers, there is less money for everything else. That is the reason contract workers are being let go, that there are fewer nurses and wards are being closed. It is the reason there is no money for critical ICT investment and that we are dangerously uninformed about anything going on in the health sector. It is the reason no maintenance or refurbishment is being carried out, services are either closed or curtailed, there is no disabled person's grant and there are no care assistants for disabled children.
One of my constituents is required to pay €150 per week for a care assistant for her Down's syndrome son so he can have the privilege of attending a State primary school. That is an outrage. Only last year the State promised that every child would be entitled to a care assistant. That promise means nothing this year. No wonder the disabled want rights-based legislation. The bottom line is that benchmarking has a price and it is being paid daily by all of us but primarily by the most vulnerable – children, the old and the sick.
The Government has a responsibility to establish priorities and decide where money is spent. When it decided to spend the money as it did, that had ramifications for all other expenditure. It has the potential to wipe out virtually all non-pay expenditure and all new recruitment. The only possible justification for making the choice it did was if the Government could prove to the taxpayer that it was getting the best possible value for money and better service. The irony is that the Minister for Finance knew this and said it publicly. However, neither he nor any member of the Government followed through to ensure that the taxpayer, who would pay this enormous bill, would get anything in return.
This is not the fault of public servants; it is the fault of the Government. Nurses cannot be expected to give a better service if their wards have been closed. Doctors cannot perform more operations if they are denied theatre time. I can offer other examples throughout the health service and other services. The Minister is aware of the point we are making. This Government must go back to the drawing board and pursue a genuine reform agenda which will equip public servants to give the type of service they want to and are capable of giving under good Government and good management.
Ba mhaith liom cuidiú leis an rún an-thábhachtach agus bunúsach seo. Táimid ag caint anocht faoin tír, faoi chúrsaí airgid agus, go mórmhór, faoin chúis nach bhfuil an t-airgead againn chun ardú ioncaim a thabhairt dos na daoine atá ag obair ar son an Stáit. Is ceist phráinneach í seo a bhfuil gach duine sa tír ag caint fúithi. Is minic a cuirtear ceist orm, cén fáth go bhfuil Fine Gael ag déanamh díospóireachta ar cheist an bhinse mharcála.
Many people ask me why Fine Gael is talking about benchmarking when the party is not in Government. It is a sincere and straightforward question asked by people who work in the public service. We have a sincere and simple answer, that the money is not available right now. The last figures published by the Minister for Finance show a serious deficit in current funding of more than €800 million. That means that at the end of the year the Government will either have to cut public services or increase taxation to bring the figures back to where they were expected to be.
The economy has changed. While everybody is hopeful that the world economy will recover, our economy is stagnating in terms of the amount of income available to meet public spending demands. Other people, for example, teachers, tend to say to me: "I think Enda Kenny is right but he should not have said it." Nurses say the same thing. They are making two judgment calls. The first is that Deputy Kenny is right. It is a fact that we cannot afford to proceed with benchmarking in the way the Government and the unions propose. The money is not there. The services are not available and we cannot provide them as matters stand.
Deputy Allen spoke earlier about the problems in local government and the extra charges that will be imposed. We must face reality. People will listen to the truth. In this instance they are getting the truth from Fine Gael speaking from the Opposition benches. The Minister must also listen to the facts, which speak for themselves.
I was called to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda at 9.15 p.m. last Thursday by a family whose mother, aged over 70 years, had a suspected blood clot in her leg. They rang me because they were told there was no bed for their mother and that there was a possibility but no definite hope of a trolley. I called down and spoke to the family. Thankfully, the lady was given a trolley at about 11.30 p.m. and at 5.30 the following morning she was admitted to a ward for treatment of this serious condition.
During the previous week I got another call from the same hospital. The lady concerned was admitted through casualty with a suspected stomach ulcer problem. She was kept for over 24 hours on a trolley. The family was happy that she was getting good care and attention on the trolley. However, after 24 hours the lady was taken off the trolley and put on a chair. The reason was that the hospital had no more trolleys and the one she had occupied had to be given to a patient who came in with a suspected heart attack.
The same is occurring in the accident and emergency departments of all hospitals. The money is not available so services are not being provided. The services are not available to look after the sick and the elderly because we have squandered the money. If the Government proceeds with benchmarking as it proposes, it will have to find the extra money. It will have to cut services further. There will be a progressive deterioration in the quality of service in accident and emergency departments and in hospital services.
Deputy Olivia Mitchell is absolutely correct about disabled persons' grants. We are all aware of the position in our constituencies. I am sure the Minister has also met such people. I met one man in his late 70s whose wife had a stroke. They lived in a local authority house with an upstairs bathroom and bedroom and he had to carry his wife upstairs to bed every night. Being an independent person, he would not accept a home help who might have done it in that instance. He is waiting, just as people in Louth are waiting. The Government has made no effort to provide funding for disabled persons' grants. In Louth there is no such funding. They are now dealing with the 52 applications which they agreed last year.
If benchmarking goes ahead as proposed, the services that are poor will get much worse. The money to pay for it can only come from increased taxation or a reduction in services. Fine Gael is saying that the Minister should stop and look again at what is in the benchmarking report. It states that, for the 75% that is to come, we should examine the required efficiencies. Everyone, including public servants, knows that there is no such thing as a free lunch. I believe that they are prepared to respond to the crisis in the national economy and to the fact that we do not have the money that we expected to have to run our services. There are also significant problems in other parts of the public services. It is not that long ago that a situation arose between the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform who sits with the Minister at the Cabinet table, and the Prison Officers' Association. He pointed out that overtime payments could not continue to rise as they had. There was uproar, rí-rá and ruaille buaille. The Minister was right, we cannot afford to run public services that depend far too much on jobs which literally consist of overtime or where two or three times the basic income comes from it. That is not good enough either.
If one looks up the websites on benchmarking, as I am sure we all did tonight, one will see that the issue that comes up very clearly is that of teachers' benchmarking, an absolutely fundamental question throughout the past few years. As I understand it, the teachers have reached consensus with their employers and are concluding productivity deals on the hours that the schools will be open to meet parents and so on. Fine Gael is saying that it is good, constructive common sense and makes good financial sense, because we cannot afford to go on as we are. It is simply not possible, and it is the Minister's job to ensure that the economy is in the healthiest possible state given the situation that has arisen from benchmarking.
The other issue that arises is that of community and voluntary bodies, which is part of my job. Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív is the Minister responsible and no one doubts his sincerity or commitment to it. We all know what is going on with community employment schemes in our constituencies. We all know communities that have operated effectively and efficiently, holding their own against the tide of urban Ireland. They have stood out nobly, providing their own services in their own communities. They have cut the grass, built up community services and implemented small schemes to take people, particularly people in their 40s and 50s who are not generally in full-time employment, and give them a place and a role. They are real communities which are alive and well. What will the reality be for those? What will the reality be, given the way the economy is currently running? Without reform and improvements in service delivery, the cost of benchmarking will take its toll, particularly on the sector least well equipped to deal with it, the community and voluntary sector.
The Government has taken a hatchet to the community employment scheme, which will see its numbers fall from a high of 40,000 to 20,000 by the end of the year. The Government Estimates for 2003 provide for only 20,000 places on community employment schemes, a reduction of 50%. The number of people involved in CE schemes has fallen by one third since last year. Disadvantaged communities are reeling as the effect of the cutbacks hits them. Many community group projects are already being closed or are seriously affected by the cuts. I believe there was a report in the papers the day before yesterday about protesters being dragged out of the way of a Minister – I believe it was the Tánaiste, Deputy Harney. They were protesting about their community scheme being disbanded in an urban area. That is not good enough and is not acceptable.
Vital and valuable services are provided for people with disabilities, the elderly and children by community employment schemes. In Drogheda there was a community employment scheme whereby people got meals on wheels ready for elderly people in their homes. The health board was obviously not in a position, or did not want – no one did – to take them from their homes and put them into long-term or medium-term care. What happened to that community employment scheme? It is gone because there is no money for it. Now those people must be dealt with and helped in a different manner. These cutbacks in public and community services will make matters more expensive for the State in the longer term. I put it to the Minister that the Minister for Health, Deputy Martin, overruled the decision of the North Eastern Health Board not to proceed with its budget for this year. The reason was that there was over €1 million of cuts in home helps amounting to over 8,000 hours. That means that people with a disability will be at home on their own. I knew a gentleman who was blind but left on his own practically all day because there was no one to look after him. There was no home help available. The writ of the Minister, Deputy Martin, applied in his Department, and he cut back the budget.
We are bringing to the Minister the real issues, which I am sure he must know from reports on his desk – they are also on those of other Ministers. We are describing just how bad the situation is on the ground at present. If we go ahead and pay more money to more and more public servants, increasing the money without a better deal for all those people, it makes no sense.
What will the effect be when a €500 million reduction in services starts to have an effect as a result of the benchmarking Bill? The Government promised to mainstream health and child care positions in the community and voluntary sector currently filled by CE scheme participants. That promise has thus far gone unfulfilled. There are two chances that the Government will deliver, a dog's chance and no chance. What will happen when benchmarking is implemented? The Government will remain content to see vital services provided to the old, the sick and people with disabilities by part-time, vulnerable and temporary workers. When the CE schemes disappear, as they undoubtedly will, and the Government reneges altogether on its promises to give those jobs the primacy and value they deserve, services will be lost to those most in need. Without a quid pro quo in more efficient delivery of service, increased availability of trained staff and cost effectiveness, the price of benchmarking will be far too high for vulnerable sectors to bear.
Recently I attended a meeting in Gardiner Street of all the community groups in the city of Dublin who are concerned about the delivery of services to that part of our community most at risk, drug users. There are more than 13,000 heroin addicts. Those groups work in the most deprived areas of our cities to give a better service to their communities. They said that community schemes were cut. The jobs of people working directly with those with a drugs problem were ring-fenced. They were cut back in the health boards. The absence of health board workers in the community has a very significant and adverse impact on the effectiveness of the Government and community in fighting the drugs problem in Dublin city.
It is time to think again. It is time to do another deal on benchmarking. We ask the Minister to think before he acts and ensure the community is better off and particularly that the poor and the vulnerable do not suffer.
I move amendment No. 1:
To delete all words after "Dail Éireann" and to substitute the following:
"notes that:
– the benchmarking exercise under the PPF was an important initiative in developing a better system of pay determination in the public service;
– payment of the second and third phases of the increases recommended by the Public Service Benchmarking Body and of the general round increases under Sustaining Progress is conditional on the maintenance of industrial relations peace and on progress on modernisation in the public service; and
– effective verification processes have been put in place to ensure that these conditions are met."
I wish to share time with the Minister for Education and Science.
The Fine Gael motion is quite remarkable in what it proposes. It asks the Government to break an agreement reached only last January with the social partners. This would inevitably mean the collapse of Sustaining Progress and probably the end of the social partnership process that has served this country well since the late 1980s. The motion also seeks to deny to public servants pay increases which have been recommended by an independent and distinguished body chaired by a High Court judge. It ignores the fact that strict conditions have been attached to payment with an effective verification process having been put in place to ensure that those conditions are met. In effect, the motion seeks to prejudge the outcome of that verification process.
The motion is surprising in that Fine Gael seems to have reversed its position on the payment of the benchmarking increases. In July 2002, shortly after the publication of the report of the benchmarking body, Deputy Enright issued a statement calling for the immediate negotiation of the benchmarking report between the Minister for Education and Science and teacher unions, saying "The timetable for the delivery of the proposed increases will be crucial."
Much of the comment about the benchmarking process from Deputies opposite and others shows little real understanding of what benchmarking is about or recognition of developments that have taken place in recent years. I would like to make some facts clear.
Why benchmarking? Prior to 2000 when the body was established the public service pay scene was very unsettled. In the 1990s there had been a whole series of disputes, particularly notable examples being the nurses' strike and the famous, or infamous, "blue flu". There was a general recognition that we could not go on like this.
Deciding pay levels in the public service has always been difficult and contentious. How does one decide the level of pay for a garda or a nurse when the private sector comparators are not obvious? Over many years a system of relativities had grown up. Basically, groups were linked to other public service groups so that a pay rise for one knocked-on to the related group. Sometimes these groups bore no relationship to each other in terms of work and were linked solely for pay purposes. This led to leapfrogging, with each group trying to pull ahead of other groups with consequent claims in turn for catch up increases. Pay increases could end up being determined on the basis of irrational pay linkages, selective analogues or simply horse-trading with no real objective basis. To many, the system was illogical, inconsistent and incoherent. Right across the spectrum of political parties, interest groups and commentators the view was expressed that there had to be a better way to determine public service pay.
At a plenary meeting of the social partners in July 1998, the Taoiseach took the initiative in calling for a better way to manage public service pay. Following from this, over the next 18 months or so there were detailed discussions between the public service employers and unions to find a better way forward. These discussions culminated in the negotiations which resulted in the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness in early 2000. The outcome was benchmarking. When the Government agreed to benchmarking, an important consideration was that the unions agreed the old system of cross-sectoral relativities was dead. This was a fundamental change from the old regime and has been copper-fastened in Sustaining Progress.
Benchmarking was not some esoteric process or arcane mystery. It was essentially a process that measured the wages and salaries of workers in the public service and compared them to jobs in the private sector. In making this comparison, allowance had to be made for the differences between the two sectors, such as on job security and superannuation. The jobs were measured by a job scoring system which is a common approach to measuring differing jobs. The body that carried out this work from mid-2000 to its report in mid-2002 was an independent body, chaired by a High Court judge, and not controlled by either the employers or the unions.
This was a major undertaking. Some may not realise that benchmarking spanned the entire public service, dealing with a large and diverse range of groups such as clerical, executive and management staff, and also technical and professional staff, in the Civil Service, local authorities and health boards, nurses and other health professionals, teachers, members of the Defence Forces, the Garda, firefighters, and the staff here in the Houses of the Oireachtas. These are the people whose pay increases Fine Gael wants to block.
An essential principle underlying benchmarking was that the public service should be able to offer pay rates that would be fair to its employees and enable it to recruit and retain its fair share of good quality staff. The public service should not lose out unfairly but neither should it set the pace. This is what the benchmarking body was asked to address.
The research exercise on private sector jobs carried out for the benchmarking body was one of the most extensive of its kind ever carried out not just in Ireland but anywhere. We have heard much of the argument that the process lacked transparency but I do not accept that this view is soundly based. The benchmarking body did publish an extensive description of the research it had carried out. What it did not publish was the raw data it had collected on private sector earnings. There were good reasons for this. First, most of the data collected on private sector jobs and earnings was received on a strictly confidential basis. It would not be possible to get it otherwise. Second, publishing masses of raw data would only create scope for endless challenge and nit-picking. This is the reality of how industrial relations works. Any sensible industrial relations practitioner would acknowledge this. There is a considerable amount of misunderstanding in this area. Anyone who has ever been involved in industrial relations, and who knows anything about the process of how an independent arbiter decides on a case, knows that the information given by one side or the other is not thrown into the public domain for someone to nit-pick later. One would never get a result if that were the case.
One can imagine the chaos that would ensue if the detailed workings of the benchmarking body were sent out to the public. Every group who considers it should have got a greater increase would come back and ask why such a thing was not taken into account. One of the purposes of setting up the benchmarking body was to get away from the relativities that have bedevilled industrial relations in the public service for the past 50 years. It is the one issue that successive Governments made extraordinary efforts to get rid of and none has been successful. Many years ago I was a member of a Cabinet which thought it had finally finished with this particular relativity. That was in the early 1990s and the Government of the day did not bother to appoint a conciliation arbitrator as all the unions had signed up bar a few. It was the closest we ever got to getting rid of it and the whole process started off again. It was not the fault of any one Government, it goes across Governments. Deputies will be aware that relativities have bedevilled industrial relations business. If one group gets an increase another group must get it.
As one who enjoys being Minister for Finance, one thing I was not aware of when I took office was that an extraordinary amount of my time would be taken up by the role of Minister for the public service. I have learned that the smallest concession given to any group cannot be ring-fenced, even when the relevant Department tells me that it can. Nothing in the public service is ring-fenced. If the smallest increase was given to anybody in this room tonight, on a confidential basis and on the basis of excellent work, before 5 p.m. on Friday a group in some other area would look for the same concession. Anybody who has served in Government knows that. Deputies who are members of unions such as teachers' unions know that if an increase is given to anybody, somebody else will want the same. We could never get out of that situation.
The biggest advantage of benchmarking is that everybody signs up for it. It examines the situation for once and for all and tries to get rid of the relativities. As people well know, if the usher at a hospital in Dublin got an increase, within a year the chief executive of the same hospital would have to get a proportionate increase or even more. Then the whole circle would start again. I make that point about one particular benefit of benchmarking. In Sustaining Progress this was signed off again. If we can stick to this benchmarking report the relativity problem will be solved once and for all and then anyone who tries to break out of that straitjacket will not have the protection of the Government. This is why we are not prepared to do as suggested. We have decided on this based on the independent body's report and this is what everyone has signed up to, including the unions.
As I said, any sensible industrial relations practitioner would acknowledge this. The better approach is to appoint a suitable body of independent experts whose judgment and fairness can be accepted by all, to oversee research and reach conclusions. One will find that similar approaches are adopted by many comparable bodies in other jurisdictions. The review body on higher remuneration in the public sector, for example, as a result of whose report Members have benefited, which deals with top public service posts, has operated on this basis for over 30 years.
The report of the public service benchmarking body was issued in mid-2002. The increases recommended averaged 8.9%. It is worth noting at this stage something which most people seem to have forgotten, that in the period prior to the report there were fairly widespread forecasts of across the board increases of 12% or 15%.
The increases recommended ranged generally from about 4% to about 15%, with a small number of cases outside this range. Again, this spread of increases was wider than many would have forecast. The safe option for the benchmarking body would have been seen as recommending only a very narrow spread of increases. That the benchmarking body was not inhibited in this, but rather called it as it saw it, was a clear demonstration of its integrity and independence.
The implementation of the increases was negotiated with the unions in the context of the new national agreement, Sustaining Progress. It had been agreed under the PPF that one quarter would be paid with effect from December 2001. As part of the public service pay agreement under Sustaining Progress it was agreed that half of the increases would be paid on 1 January 2004 and the final quarter on 1 June 2005, provided certain important conditions are met.
It is important to remember that during the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness, which preceded Sustaining Progress, there were no pay settlements in the public service above the standard pay rounds of the agreement. At the same time in the private sector, whether because of the tight labour market or otherwise, the terms were exceeded in a large number of firms. Inevitably the results of this were reflected in the benchmarking exercise which was in practice a catching-up exercise. The cost of the increases is high, about €1.1 billion a year when fully implemented. While I might have preferred if this cost came at a better time for the Exchequer, the Government made commitments on this for good reasons and I believe in sticking to the deals that I make. Moreover, with the final phase of the increases being payable from mid-2005, the cost is being spread over a number of budgetary periods.
A further feature of Sustaining Progress which tends to be overlooked is that there is a six month pay pause at the start of the agreement. This does not apply in the private sector.
They lost their jobs.
It has to be stressed that payment is not automatic. In the agreement the payment of the benchmarking increases is dependent on the absence of industrial action and progress on modernisation and increased flexibility to improve the delivery of public services. The same conditionality applies to the general round increases under Sustaining Progress. This is also a significant development.
The Government will meet the bill on the basis of the conditions set down in the agreement. This means no industrial action such as we saw in recent years with hospital services being curtailed because of disputes or disruption to our schools. Any form of industrial action will be clear for all to see and would be a breach of the conditions of the agreement. I am aware that previous national pay agreements contained commitments to promoting industrial harmony and seeking to preclude industrial action. We all know that these had only a limited effect in preventing industrial action. The provisions in Sustaining Progress are more categorical, the commitments by the public service unions on this issue are clear-cut and the machinery to ensure compliance is straightforward and simple.
The agreement sets out specific changes needed in individual sectors and organisations in the public service and more general requirements on co-operation with modernisation and change. Some of the changes will be obvious for all to see while others, by no means less important, will not, but all will contribute to improving and modernising our public services to give better customer service and improved value to taxpayer. Other Ministers will comment on changes in the sectors for which they are responsible but I will give some examples from the Civil Service. For the first time there will be some open recruitment to middle and senior management posts in the Civil Service. At the same time, there will be improvements in internal promotion arrangements, with greater emphasis on merit.
There is to be legislation to modernise the recruitment and employment status of civil servants. In accordance with the agreement, the Government is legislating to modernise civil service recruitment practices. The Civil Service Commission will be overhauled. New commissioners will set recruitment standards and license office holders to carry out recruitment. A new public appointment service will be established to carry out recruitment and private sector agencies may be nominated by the commissioners to carry out recruitment on behalf of licence holders.
The Government is also making significant changes to the management of staff in Departments. A new Bill on regulation will give Secretaries General and heads of office the power to dismiss civil servants below principal officer level. At and above principal officer level, civil servants may be dismissed by the Minister. Where a person is appointed by the Government, the power of dismissal remains with the Government. As part of the same initiative, wider powers will be given to heads of office to deal with under-performance by staff. To ensure fair procedure, the Bill also provides that the existing unfair dismissals legislation will apply to civil servants.
These important changes in the law will bring about significant improvements in the way that civil servants are recruited and in the way staff of Departments are managed. The framework is being laid for an efficient and flexible approach to the management of the Civil Service.
Apart from important headline issues like these, there are specific and detailed elements right down through the action plans prepared by Departments and organisations across the public service. These involve issues like flexibilities, new working arrangements, new technology and extended opening hours. All these, if delivered, will provide benefits for the public. The Government wants to see a move away from old traditional methods of working towards a more modern, sophisticated service using up-to-date technologies and practice. This applies across the whole public service.
One would think from some of the comments that have been made that the civil and wider public service have not changed and modernised in the past but are still operating on a 19th century model. There has been a process of continuous review and improvement across the public service over a number of years. Under Sustaining Progress, we seek to accelerate and deepen that change process.
The agreement sets out the process to be followed for verification of achievement of the agreement. This includes the preparation of and reporting on action plans, verification of progress by performance verification groups with a strong independent element and final decisions by the relevant Secretaries General in each case that the necessary conditions have been met. Furthermore, if any grades, sectors or organisations fail to agree on specific actions to achieve the commitments or, having so agreed, fail to deliver on them, they should not expect the verification process to decide that pay increases are warranted.
Central to the process are the performance verification groups or PVGs. These comprise an equal number of management, trade union and independent members, together with an independent chairperson. The PVG will assess progress not just at sectoral level but also at organisational and grade levels. In addition to making an assessment of progress, at the latest one month in advance of each of the five payment dates specified in the agreement, the PVG will maintain close contact with each of the organisations under its remit throughout the reporting period.
The local partnership committees will agree action plans and submit them to the PVG for approval. Once approved, these will be translated into an organisational action plan by the head of the organisation for implementation. These heads of organisations will prepare progress reports on implementing the plans for the partnership committees and these in turn will be submitted to the appropriate Secretary General responsible for that sector. In turn, the Secretary General will submit a report to the PVG along with his or her assessment of progress. The PVG will then decide whether the progress achieved warrants payment. The final decision on whether to make payment then rests with the relevant Secretary General.
In order to ensure transparency, it is my intention that the performance verification groups will become scheduled bodies under the Freedom of Information Act and I will make the necessary order to this effect shortly. In the meantime, all action plans and associated priorities in respect of Government Departments have been published on the Department of Finance's website.
The benchmarking route that the Government has adopted to determine and manage public service pay has the potential to yield significant benefits since it should lead to industrial relations peace, accelerated improvements in the delivery of public services and provide a new and better framework for pay determination for the future rather than the old relativities-based system of the past.
The Government believes that this is the best way forward and is prepared to deliver on the commitments it has made. The onus is on the public service and in particular the public service unions and their members to deliver on the other side of the bargain and to demonstrate that the choice we have made is the right one.
For the benefit of those who may not have heard me this afternoon, I remind Deputies that in 2001 I introduced a statutory measure which facilitates those who do not wish to accept an increase in salary. In view of the Fine Gael motion, I am particularly pleased to draw party members' attention to section 9 of the Ministerial, Parliamentary and Judicial Offices and Oireachtas Members (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2001, which amends the Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices Act 1938. I look forward to the Fine Gael Members availing of this facility, which is clearly demanded by their attitude. They can be assured that all payments forfeited will be put to good use. I commend the amendment to the House.
Will the Minister clarify if that is the same good use to which he put the Exchequer surplus of €5 billion?
The question of payments to public servants recommended by the benchmarking body has been the subject of adverse comments from the Opposition recently, particularly in the context of the increasing pressures on the public finances which no one denies. We would not serve the people well, nor would it say much for the spirit of partnership if, at the first sign of difficulties, we reneged on a deal we made in the recent past. Part of the problem with this discussion is that the adverse comments have focused particularly on the costs of paying the award and are based on a fundamental misunderstanding that there are no real gains available from the process for the Government as an employer or the public as customers of the public services.
It is important we set the record straight on that issue and make it clear that there are specific gains for the Government and the public in terms of service delivery. It is important that we continue to remind the Opposition of the role played by social partnership in our recent economic success. That role of social partnership cannot be overstated. The benefits in terms of low inflation, wage restraint, rising standards of living, low unemployment rates and record levels of economic growth are due, in the most part, to a process which started at the end of the 1980s in the first social partnership agreement in 1987, the Programme for National Recovery, and carried on through to the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness.
The establishment of the public service benchmarking body to review the pay of public servants was a key feature of the PPF agreement. As has been outlined by my colleague, the Minister for Finance, both the Government and the public service trade unions accepted and agreed that there was a need to find an appropriate way of benchmarking public service pay to the market. That, it was hoped, would ensure that public service was in a position to attract and retain the staff needed to deliver the quantum and quality of services the public is entitled to expect.
Employers and unions recognised that the traditional approach to pay reviews in the public service based on the analogues and relativities had given rise to serious difficulties in the past, some of which the Minister for Finance outlined. Agreements reached on a claim in regard to one grade automatically gave rise to similar claims from other related grades. There was a continuous domino effect in regard to these claims. An alternative approach was clearly required which would be grounded in a coherent and broadly-based comparison with jobs and pay rates across the economy.
The public service benchmarking body was established as a totally independent body, chaired by a High Court judge. The benchmarking exercise involved comparing public service pay and jobs with pay and jobs across the economy with a view to ensuring that the public service pay rates compared favourably with comparable employment in the private sector. The body arranged its own independent research programme and sought written and oral submissions from all parties. It was therefore free and independent of the Government and the trade unions.
The body produced its report in June 2002 and recommended an average increase of 8.9% in public service pay costs. It recommended that implementation of its pay awards should be made conditional upon agreements on the issues of adaptability, change, flexibility and modernisation. The body also recommended that an appropriate validation process be established to ensure that agreements on these issues are implemented in accordance with their terms and this too has been done.
It was agreed, under the adjustment to the PPF in December 2000, that one quarter of the increases recommended by the public service benchmarking body should be paid with effect from 1 December 2001 and that was paid on ratification of the new public service agreement, Sustaining Progress. The balance of the increases recommended by the body will be paid under the new agreement on the following basis: 50% of the increases from 1 January 2004 and 25% from 1 June 2005. In addition to that, the public service pay agreement provides for a pay pause of six months to be followed by 3% from 1 January 2004, 2% from 1 July 2004 and 2% from 1 December 2004.
One of the central themes of Sustaining Progress is a commitment to the modernisation of the public service. As part of that commitment and as a condition of payment for benchmarking awards, a modernisation agenda has been agreed for the public service which contains real and significant improvements in the efficiency and effectiveness of public service delivery. This agenda will deliver a public service which is quality, performance and results driven, which achieves value for money and which is focused on the needs of the customer. If and when it delivers that, it will be a huge gain for the public. It will deliver a public service which is accountable and which will respond flexibly and rapidly to change.
The agenda is particularly strong on the needs of the customer. The parties to the agreement are committed to improving the level of customer service and accept that all public services should be designed and delivered based on the needs of the individual citizen, business or community. An immediate example of this is in the education sector, where the agreement is to hold parent-teacher meetings on a half-in, half-out of school time basis during the current school year, with provision to extend this agreed commitment in a way which provides flexible formal parent-teacher meetings at times convenient to parents and teachers and which minimises disruptions to students and their parents in time for the 2004-2005 school year. Discussions in that area will commence shortly. In addition, mid-term breaks and holiday periods at Christmas and Easter are now standardised across all schools, which will provide clear benefits to families where children are attending different schools. The arrangements for in-service training will also be reviewed to lessen the impact of such training for teachers on the operation of schools.
In the third level sector significant modernisation commitments are agreed. In the institutes of technology sector students and staff will be surveyed at least once each academic year to provide feedback on course delivery and provision. Flexible modes of delivery of courses will be introduced and modularised in semesterised forms. Performance management and development systems are introduced for all staff in institutes of technology, vocational education committees and the university sector. The Minister outlined earlier the changes in recruitment and promotion procedures within the Civil Service. The focus in the health service is on a stable industrial relations climate where all stakeholders are committed to a culture of co-operation, collaborative working and partnership in the management of the industrial relations climate.
It is important in the context of this evening's motion to underline again the fact that there is a verification process. The money will not be paid on the basis of an agreement which will not be implemented. There is a verification of co-operation with flexibility and ongoing change. There must be satisfactory implementation of the agenda for modernisation in each of the sectors. There must be maintenance of stable industrial relations and an absence of industrial action in respect of any matters covered by the Sustaining Progress agreement. Performance verification groups have been established for each sector to ensure this is done. There is provision in the agreement for the non-payment of the award where conditions for payment have not been met.
The Government is committed to the social partnership process and its obligations under Sustaining Progress. The Government will honour its commitments in relation to the payment of benchmarking awards but it will insist that the other parties to the agreement live up to their side of the bargain and deliver on the modernisation agenda. There are processes in place to ensure this happens.
When I read the motion, I wondered who would be best pleased at it. For the Minister, Deputy McCreevy, it must constitute considerable moral support as he enters a budget which through his mismanagement of the boom years of the economy leaves very large gaps in the public finances. In tabling the motion tonight, is Fine Gael hitting the right target?
The system of social partnership has made a significant contribution to economic growth and development in this country. The system was entered into freely by negotiation between the parties. Would Fine Gael find it acceptable if the trade unions unilaterally walked away from the social partnership process and welshed on an agreement? I wonder why it is recommending tonight that the Government should walk away from a freely negotiated agreement. I found the remarks by Deputy Kenny that the agreement constitutes the politics of appeasement very harsh language in the context of public servants, many of whom are very poorly paid.
The focus in the media, understandably, is on the fact that Deputies' pay is now linked to that of principal officers in the public service. Principal officers are by any standards very well paid, with high levels of security and good conditions, the kind of scenario we would wish for high productivity, high output and a good wage economy. We do not want a low wage economy. Public servants at the bottom of the ladder are very badly off. Some of them qualify for family income supplement and some find it increasingly difficult to buy a house.
I do not know whether the Fine Gael motion is partly based on focus group analysis whereby, given the deterioration in the public finances, people are looking for sectors to blame and public servants – not doctors or nurses – as a general class of people constitute an easy target. Prior to the last election, Fine Gael, rather disastrously, tried niche politics in relation to suggestions in respect of Eircom and compensation for taxi drivers under deregulation. I do not know whether this motion is another form of niche marketing or perhaps owes more to recall of the historic Tallaght strategy and is a genuine effort to contribute to public debate. I wonder if Fine Gael is hitting the correct target in making public service workers the target of this politics of appeasement. I say that because the Government badly needs to be called to account for its disastrously inept management of the public finances.
It is still the best in Europe.
If that is the debate Fine Gael is seeking, I have no problem.
The Minister is leaving just as I was about to talk about the Comptroller and Auditor General's disclosure of the type of exposure to which the public has been subjected by the Minister's handling – more importantly, his predecessor's handling – of the institutional redress scheme estimated to cost between €500 million to €1 billion.
That is totally incorrect.
There is the disclosure this evening of the scandal in relation to the "Minister for lamp-posts" and his predecessor, the former Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy O'Donoghue—
Is the Deputy for or against the agreement?
—who has left this country with an unbelievable bill for services in relation to the Department's management of the asylum-seeker process.
There are details in the Comptroller and Auditor General's report of how extensions to certain elements of PRSI and benefits ended up costing not just €9 million a year, as estimated, but €113 million a year, and rising. There are the escalating costs of projects such as the Cork School of Music and the courthouse in Cork. Above all else, what we have in terms of the Government's manage ment of the economy is the development of a corrosive notion of unfairness. Nowhere is that unfairness which Fianna Fáil, led by the nose by the Progressive Democrats, has fostered more evident than in the disclosures today by the Comptroller and Auditor General in relation to the tax system.
The annual report of the Comptroller and Auditor General sought to examine, as has been discussed on a number of occasions, the cost of tax breaks and tax incentives. He identified 91 such allowances. Of those 91 allowances, which cost the State tens of billions of tax revenue, just 48 have cost indications. Ten have an estimated cost and there is no estimate for 33 others. It is not known, therefore, what is the cost of tax breaks given to the horse breeding industry. We have no idea because the people involved are not obliged to proffer accounts until this time next year. We have no idea of the cost of relief for the seaside resorts scheme or for the scheme of repatriation of income from foreign trusts. The Comptroller and Auditor General commented on the 400 wealthiest taxpayers. He examined their returns in 1999-2000 and the value of tax breaks, or the cost to everyone else of tax foregone, was £70 million.
I refer to our colleagues in Opposition and the debate on the creation of a fairer, more responsible society. There must be balance and it is not only a case of picking on the public servant and deciding he or she is the target while the wealthiest people get away with murder in terms of tax breaks. Nothing is said about this except by the Labour Party. Similarly, the party has primarily called the Government to account regarding the redress deal negotiated with the religious institutions in terms of how taxpayers could be saddled with such a costly deal that gives no sense of justice to the people who suffered so cruelly in these institutions over the past 50 years.
I refer to comments by both Ministers. The process of public sector reform undertaken in recent years has gone seriously off the rails because of the ineptness of Government management. An important study was published recently, which examined public spending in Ireland. It highlighted that over recent years expenditure, particularly on health and education, has reached the European average as a percentage of GNP. I can understand why people feel angry about this, given the significant increases in spending in these areas with absolutely nothing to show for it. The reform process has been incredibly badly managed by the Government and senior public servants.
A bewildering example was the so-called reform of the former Eastern Health Board, which became the Eastern Regional Health Authority. Where once there was one body, inefficient as it was, there is now four bodies, each with its own directors and boards. A plethora of middle managers and directors of services was appointed. A significant element of their jobs is to pass reports up and down the food chain such that more of the time of managers in areas such as nursing is devoted to paperwork than patient care. If we are to have a serious debate on the benchmarking process, we should discuss the Government's management of public service reform.
Is that what the debate is about? It took the Deputy 16 minutes to mention benchmarking.
By any standards, the Government has a poorer service to show for the significant money it has spent. A number of issues understandably irritate the public. Public servants with a strong public service ethos know that a number of practices are outmoded and ridiculous, such as the non-facilitation of parent-teacher meetings at hours that are convenient to parents. Teachers are aware that in most families both parents work and in one parent families the parent must work hard to raise his or her children. The teacher unions should address the needs of parents and they should not stall the implementation of logical reforms that constitute a strong continuation of the tradition of public service.
I refer to another example of bad public service and ministerial management. It became clear in recent years that there were not enough nurses to care for the expanding population. Both the Minister for Health and Children and the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment embarked on a worldwide recruitment campaign to attract foreign nurses to work in the domestic health service. They travelled around the world at great cost. Nurses came to Ireland and were trained over the past year and a half at a significant cost to the Exchequer. However, because of the stop-go approach that constitutes current health service management, most of these nurses are being poached by the NHS in the UK, which can offer them longer contracts and work visas for their partners and spouses. There has been vast public expenditure on the recruitment of foreign personnel for the health service but they are being let go. Is that not the worst value for money? It highlights the total ineptness of the Government's management of the public service.
I can understand Fine Gael's frustration regarding where all the money is going. However, proposing the breakdown of the partnership process as the way to cure the ills in our public service is ill-considered and not sufficiently thought out.
