Estimates for Public Services 2013
I move the following Revised Estimates:
Under Vote 18 - shared services - a sum not exceeding €21.019 million is being provided for. Under Vote 19 - the Office of the Ombudsman - a sum not exceeding €7.437 million is being provided for.
We debated these provisions line by line at a committee yesterday. The point of contention was that 2% of the overall sum relates to apportioned pay savings that I need to find. It would be impossible for me to present Estimates with square brackets around sums. I need to put them in a way that is clear to people. If a different solution can be presented to find €300 million in savings across all the Estimates, I will be happy to make such amendments and revert to Deputies on that basis. I ask the House to bear with the normal process and allow for the business of government to continue. If changes to any pay deal are agreed through negotiation, I will be delighted to be the first to come in here to ask for the approval of the House for such adjustments to be made.
Vote 11 — Public Expenditure and Reform (Revised Estimate)
That a sum not exceeding €36,364,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 2013, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, for certain services administered by the Office of the Minister and for the payment of certain grants and grants-in-aid.
Vote 12 — Superannuation and Retired Allowances (Revised Estimate)
That a sum not exceeding €384,600,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 2013, for pensions, superannuation, occupational injuries, and additional and other allowances and gratuities under the Superannuation Acts 1834 to 2004 and sundry other statutes; extra-statutory pensions, allowances and gratuities awarded by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, fees to medical referees and occasional fees to doctors; compensation and other payments in respect of personal injuries; fees to Pensions Board; miscellaneous payments, etc.
Vote 13 — Office of Public Works (Revised Estimate)
That a sum not exceeding €374,044,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 2013, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of Public Works; for services administered by that Office including the National Procurement Service, for payment of certain grants and for the recoupment of certain expenditure.
Vote 14 — State Laboratory (Revised Estimate)
That a sum not exceeding €8,119,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 2013, for the salaries and expenses of the State Laboratory.
Vote 15 — Secret Service (Revised Estimate)
That a sum not exceeding €1,000,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 2013, for Secret Service.
Vote 16 — Valuation Office (Revised Estimate)
That a sum not exceeding €9,121,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 2013, for the salaries and expenses of the Valuation Office and certain minor services.
Vote 17 — Public Appointments Service (Revised Estimate)
That a sum not exceeding €6,283,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 2013, for the salaries and expenses of the Public Appointments Service.
Vote 18 — Shared Services (Revised Estimate)
That a sum not exceeding €21,019,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 2013, for the salaries and expenses of Shared Services.
Vote 19 — Office of the Ombudsman (Revised Estimate)
That a sum not exceeding €7,437,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 2013, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Ombudsman, the Office of the Commission for Public Service appointments, the Standards in Public Office Commission, the Office of the Information Commissioner and the Office of the Commissioner for Environmental Information.
Like others, I wish to acknowledge the presence in the Visitors Gallery of Amanda McAlister who is shadowing me today and is tasked with finding lots of savings and expenditure reductions. I am delighted she is present in the Visitors Gallery.
I thank the Ceann Comhairle for providing me with the opportunity to move these motions to allow the Revised Estimates to be agreed and the important business of providing public services to continue. As the Taoiseach said last week, the Revised Estimates are sent to the relevant committees for full discussion and are then, as usual, returned to this House. I was disappointed yesterday by the decision of Opposition spokespersons to walk out of the select committee which was discussing all of these Estimates on a line by line fashion as usual. We had devoted some hours to that process.
As I explained, the Estimates needed to be approved to ensure that some Government services could continue to operate and some Government employees could continue to be paid next week. I do not believe Government services should be shut down because we still have no final agreement on the apportionment of some pay. I made a decision to publish the Estimates, which are based on the implementation of the Labour Relations Commission recommendations, because that is what we anticipated the position would be. The recommendations were a fair and appropriate means of achieving the savings required.
We have agreed to request the chief executive officer of the Labour Relations Commission to make contact with all the parties over the next number of days to establish whether there is a basis for a negotiated settlement to meet the budgetary targets the Government has explained in some detail to the unions must be met and which are written or hard-wired into the budgetary arithmetic for this year. Following that process, any changes required will be reflected in the Estimates as appropriate and presented to the Oireachtas as soon as possible thereafter. That is the normal process. I have to produce Estimates, because people need to be assured the funding is there. If there are adjustments to be made subsequent to negotiations, I will bring those back to the House in the normal way. I gave assurances on this simple and understandable process to the committee yesterday and I give it to the House now.
Vote 18 relates to shared services. In the case of the Revised Estimates for Vote 18, shared services must be agreed in a timely way so as to keep within the statutory rules. As Deputies may know, the Central Fund (Permanent Provisions) Act 1965 limits expenditure to an amount not exceeding four fifths of the sum appropriated the previous year, prior to a Vote by the Houses of the Oireachtas. We are getting to that deadline now. Therefore, I need this Vote for shared services this week. Shared services are a key pillar of the Government's reform programme which allow for the standardisation and integration of processes allowing for greater transparency and accessibility, reduced duplication, elimination of wasteful practices, significant cost reductions and other objectives. In addition, shared services will facilitate the production and availability of accurate management information in real time to inform decision making.
While there has been progress in shared services throughout the public services in recent years, much of this has been on an ad hoc basis and considerable scope remains to expand its use on a more strategic basis. I will be happy to go through that in detail in committee. We now have a shared service centre operating in Clonskeagh - PeoplePoint - with 130 staff who provide HR services to 7,000 civil servants since 15 April. PeoplePoint human resource and pensions administration has the potential to achieve savings of approximately €12.5 million per annum when fully stabilised and to reduce staff head count from HR administration by approximately 149. A pension shared service will be integrated with the HR shared service and this is proceeding through the set-up phase. Last week, my colleagues at Cabinet gave their approval to proceed with a single payroll shared service centre. This will be located in three centres - Killarney, Galway and Tullamore - and will achieve savings of €5.6 million per annum when fully operational. These two shared services, servicing HR and payroll in the Civil Service and offices served by civil servants, will realise savings of €18.1 million when fully operational.
The effective management of the public service is of key importance as we continue to develop a leaner and more efficient system. The implementation of the Government's shared service programme offers an opportunity over time to reduce costs and improve efficiency in the performance of key functions. I also believe that a greater emphasis on shared services will be of value in progressing the integration of the public service and providing important and timely information.
I will move briefly through the Votes I seek. Vote 11 is for a sum not exceeding €36.364 million to defray the charge which will come in for payment during the year for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, for certain services administered by the Office of the Minister and for the payment of grants and grants-in-aid. Vote 12 is for a sum not exceeding €384.6 million to be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December 2013, for pensions, superannuation, occupational injuries and additional and other allowances and gratuities under the Superannuation Acts 1834 to 2004 and sundry other statutes; extra-statutory pensions, allowances and gratuities awarded by the Minister, fees to medical referees, occasional fees to doctors; compensation and other payments in respect of personal injuries; fees to Pensions Board; miscellaneous payments etc.
Vote 13 - the Office of Public Works - is for a sum not exceeding €374.044 million to be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment for the Office of Public Works, including the National Procurement Service, for payment of certain grants and for the recoupment of certain expenditure. In Vote 14, for the State Laboratory, I seek a sum not exceeding €8.119 million to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year for the salaries and expenses of the State Laboratory. In Vote 15, for the Secret Service, I seek a sum not exceeding €1 million. Vote 16, for the Valuation Office, seeks a sum not exceeding €9.121 million and Vote 17 seeks a sum not exceeding €6.283 million to defray the charge that will arise in the course of the year for the expenses of the Public Appointments Service.
I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate. I will deal specifically with some of the points made by the Minister. We are opposing these Estimates. The Minister announced yesterday on behalf of the Government that he has asked the Labour Relations Commission to contact all parties with a view to seeing whether they can come back with some new proposals. I agree with the action taken by the Minister and the Government yesterday. As the Taoiseach indicated, we should wait a couple of weeks to see what comes of this opportunity. The Minister should wait until that period has elapsed and the outcome of the discussions is known before coming back to the House with this proposal. We are opposing these Estimates because of the total disregard the Minister has shown for the decision taken by public sector workers last week. I accept that is not a major part of the Estimates. The Minister has embedded the rejected LRC Croke Park II pay proposals in each line of these Estimates. When he published his draft Estimates on budget day last December, the Croke Park deal was not embedded in each line of them.
The sum of money - €300 million - was.
It was. I would have no problem discussing the overall view. I am objecting to the manner in which the Minister has embedded each line of the rejected Croke Park II deal in the Estimates since they were originally published. He could have left it the way he had it before coming back with the details when they are available. He did not need to make a pre-emptive move by embedding each line of the Croke Park deal in this way. He could have presented Estimates of €473 million, in addition to the OPW Vote, here today without embedding the Croke Park figures in them. There was a mechanism for him to do that. We did not participate in yesterday's debate because the Estimates were flawed. I would like to make another important point. It will probably amaze the Minister; he will not believe it. Objectively, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform has been an absolute failure when it comes to these issues. As a new Department last year, it was the subject of the biggest Supplementary Estimate of any State body - more than €1 billion - last December. That says a lot about the new Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. While it is not the case that all the overruns with regard to shared services were in that Department, the point is that the Minister has overall responsibility for public expenditure.
Much of that related to the recalibration of PRSI, as the Deputy knows.
I want to deal with the issue of shared services because it reflects the absolute incompetence of the Minister and his Department. The Minister has said he wants to get this Vote through today in order that staff can be paid this week. The Taoiseach said that six times in the House this morning. The Minister has said it on several occasions. Can he imagine any business going into a bank manager today to ask for emergency funds to pay its staff this week?
Many businesses are doing it every day.
Such a person would be run out the door and told it was no way to run his or her business. This should have been planned weeks and months ahead. The Minister's statement that his Department cannot pay its staff is an absolute case of self-incrimination. He is condemning the way he runs his own Department. He is allowing staff to work up to this Friday even though there is no money in the kitty to pay them. How can any employer run a business in that way? This is an indictment of the way the Minister runs his Department. He has run this to the wire. He knew it could be foreseen. He should have come up with a proposal that did not have the Croke Park II deal embedded in it. The Minister came into this House last December, on the last sitting day of the year, with a Supplementary Estimate for Vote 12, seeking extra money for retired civil servants' superannuation. He said he would not be able to pay pensioners the following Friday. Since the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform was established, it has had a habit of presiding over the biggest set of Supplementary Estimates. It gets its figures wrong to start with. This is the second time the Minister has come here in an emergency situation asking for money today to pay staff tonight so there will be money in their bank accounts on Thursday night.
The Deputy is talking through his hat.
The Minister knows that the National Treasury Management Agency is sitting on €30 billion in cash all the while.
I am not saying it should be used. I am mentioning it in the context of the Minister's statements that we are about to run out of money. That is a nonsense statement for anybody to make when there is €30 billion in cash sitting in the bank account. I am not saying it should be used for these purposes. The Minister has said that if changes are needed as a result of the new discussions on how to save €300 million, he will be happy to be the first person to make such changes. He should have been doing that last week, this week and next week. The Minister or one of his Cabinet colleagues said yesterday that the 1 July date is not definitive as long as €300 million is saved this year. It will not be a big deal if the date is 1 August, as far as the Minister and the troika are concerned, as long as the figures are achieved. The 1 July date is not set in stone. The Minister should not rush these Estimates. It is an indictment of the way the Minister is doing his business that staff who are working today cannot be assured they will be paid on Friday morning. Similarly, the fact that this is the second time the new Department of Public Expenditure has had to seek extra money because it cannot pay its staff is an indictment of how that Department is being run.
It is the normal way we do business.
The argument for reform within the public sector is unanswerable. I support that. While the shared services initiative is not the be-all and end-all, the rolling-out of this concept makes sense. I support it because it is efficient. The problem with this Estimate will recur as each of the Estimates goes through the relevant committee. The Minister has conceded that the Croke Park cuts are hard-wired into each Estimate. The Minister said he had no option because he could not produce an Estimate with figures in square brackets. Perhaps that is what he should have done. It is not acceptable for him to instruct the LRC to talk to the unions to see whether the basis for an agreement exists while at the same time bringing to the Oireachtas Estimates which have Croke Park II written all over them. What are unions and, more importantly, workers supposed to make of that? It seems to me that the LRC has been sent on a mission to talk to the unions not about how to find more savings in order to raise €300 million, but about how to revive a deal that has been comprehensively rejected by public sector and Civil Service workers.
It is a pity the Minister has gifted this mission to the LRC because I am sure he has heard, as I have, people from within the trade union movement who have suggestions about how €300 million might be found. Taxation measures have been suggested. Stimulus measures have been proposed. If we can decrease the welfare bill by getting people back to work, that will have all sorts of knock-on consequences for the domestic economy and for domestic demand. There is no question that €300 million could be gathered by means of some of the ideas which have been highlighted. I will give a few examples of possible savings in the public service. We have not yet yielded the savings that could be achieved through the use of generic drugs. I have raised with the Minister previously the issue of the small proportion of public sectors workers who are overpaid and overpensioned. There is no question that savings could be made there. That was not the central thrust of Croke Park II, however, and that is why workers rejected it. People on modest incomes who are just about struggling by cannot take another hit.
I remind the Minister that he was part of the process of agreeing a choreography that involved talks and a ballot. He was not forced into that situation - he opted into it. Now that workers have made their decision and the result is known, the Minister should respect the decisive outcome of the ballot. We would be dealing with a different atmosphere today if the Minister respected the verdict of the workers and was introducing an Estimate that reflects the fact that he cannot count on the €300 million envisaged by Croke Park II, which has been defeated.
Perhaps he was indicating to us that he genuinely had an open ear and an open mind in respect of where €300 million might be found, but he has exhibited none of that. Instead of a pathway to finding an accommodation, what he is delivering to workers and their unions is a fait accompli. People may have voted against Croke Park II but we are writing it into the budgetary mathematics nonetheless. We will send the LRC to talk to them but, really, we have our minds made up. That is not a way to do business with workers or unions. It is also not a way to do business with the Minister's colleagues and peers, the Members of the Dáil, and it is not an appropriate way to go about his business.
I and Sinn Féin will not be party to delivering to workers this kind of fait accompli and trying to strong-arm workers into a position where they really have no choice because the Minister, Deputy Brendan Howlin, is going to foist this agreement on them whether they like it or not. With all due respect to the Minister, it makes absolutely no sense for him to ask us, as parliamentarians, to clear this Revised Estimate when he can say in the next breath "Maybe I will come back with a change or maybe I will not". There has to be a radically different view in terms of raising the additional €300 million and I think it can be done. However, I certainly will not support the manner in which the Minister proposes to do it because it will hurt low and middle income workers at the front line and, by extension, it will damage our public services. If the Minister reflected on it and was honest about it, he would recognise this.
The Minister criticised us for walking out of the committee yesterday. We were not prepared to listen to a long diatribe from the Minister, a man who is clearly not minded to listen to anything, who seems to believe he always has it right-----
-----and then to be cheer-led by his colleagues who come in and slavishly back whatever crackpot notion he comes up with. The Minister made reference to the private sector. It is absolutely laughable that he or any member of this Government would point to the private sector because they would not last a wet week in that private sector.
The Deputy should conclude.
Thank you. That is the rationale for opposing these Revised Estimates. It is not complicated. All of the Minister's spiel about shared services and paying people is a simple ruse, a Trojan horse even, to sneak in Croke Park II even though the workers have rejected it.
The question before the House is whether or not we should vote through Revised Estimates for this year that include the Croke Park II formula. On the basis that Croke Park II has been overwhelmingly rejected, I honestly believe this will be seen as an insult by the 290,000 public sector workers. It would be very unhelpful to the ongoing and sensitive negotiations to find an acceptable agreement and it would be a symbol from this Government that says "We do not care for collective bargaining if we do not get the answer we want, and we will carry on regardless".
One substantive reason has been given by both the Minister and the Taoiseach, namely, if a vote is not taken in the next number of days, the funding for the shared services centre ends. I fully support the shared services centre and I would not like to see that happen. Therefore, let us vote through the funding for the shared services centre and that only. I believe public sector workers would appreciate that.
With that done, why would the Government vote through the rest of the spending at this time? The Minister and the Taoiseach have given reasons as to why this might happen. They have both said it is normal procedure and that it can be changed later, and they have both intimated that public servants would understand the situation the Government is in. I do not believe they would understand that, having gone through a democratic process and having overwhelmingly rejected the deal on offer, they would see this deal voted into law by the Government just seven days later.
The public servants to whom I have spoken feel that not only was Croke Park II unfair and unacceptable to them but that, throughout the process, they were condescended to, insulted and bullied. This vote will be seen by many public sector workers as a continuation of that tone and approach. The point is that this problem is very easily solved. There are three things we could do. The first is that the Minister could withdraw today's vote on the expenditure for his Department. The second is that he could bring through a vote tomorrow, which I would fully support, for the shared services centre only. The third is that this would give time for the ongoing and very sensitive negotiations on the target of €300 million, a target I accept. However, I do not accept that the way to do it is to target pay and pensions. I believe there is vast waste in the public sector that should be cut before going after pay and pensions, and I believe that is one of the reasons the deal was rejected.
On the basis that the issue we have before us today is an easily solved problem, and that this vote will be seen by public sector workers as a deeply disrespectful snub from this Government, if the Minister and the Government proceed with this vote, one can only conclude that this is actually part of an ongoing hostile negotiation. As such, Dáil Éireann should firmly and roundly reject it.
Question put:
The Dáil divided: Tá, 78; Níl, 50.
Tá
- Breen, Pat.
- Bruton, Richard.
- Burton, Joan.
- Butler, Ray.
- Buttimer, Jerry.
- Byrne, Catherine.
- Byrne, Eric.
- Carey, Joe.
- Coffey, Paudie.
- Collins, Áine.
- Conaghan, Michael.
- Conlan, Seán.
- Connaughton, Paul J.
- Conway, Ciara.
- Coonan, Noel.
- Creed, Michael.
- Daly, Jim.
- Deasy, John.
- Deenihan, Jimmy.
- Deering, Pat.
- Doherty, Regina.
- Donohoe, Paschal.
- Durkan, Bernard J.
- English, Damien.
- Farrell, Alan.
- Feighan, Frank.
- Ferris, Anne.
- Fitzpatrick, Peter.
- Flanagan, Charles.
- Gilmore, Eamon.
- Griffin, Brendan.
- Harrington, Noel.
- Harris, Simon.
- Hayes, Tom.
- Heydon, Martin.
- Hogan, Phil.
- Howlin, Brendan.
- Humphreys, Heather.
- Humphreys, Kevin.
- Keating, Derek.
- Kehoe, Paul.
- Kelly, Alan.
- Kenny, Seán.
- Kyne, Seán.
- Lawlor, Anthony.
- Lyons, John.
- McEntee, Helen.
- McGinley, Dinny.
- McHugh, Joe.
- McLoughlin, Tony.
- McNamara, Michael.
- Maloney, Eamonn.
- Mathews, Peter.
- Mitchell, Olivia.
- Mitchell O'Connor, Mary.
- Mulherin, Michelle.
- Nash, Gerald.
- Neville, Dan.
- Nolan, Derek.
- Ó Ríordáin, Aodhán.
- O'Donnell, Kieran.
- O'Mahony, John.
- O'Sullivan, Jan.
- Penrose, Willie.
- Perry, John.
- Phelan, Ann.
- Phelan, John Paul.
- Quinn, Ruairí.
- Ring, Michael.
- Ryan, Brendan.
- Shatter, Alan.
- Spring, Arthur.
- Stagg, Emmet.
- Stanton, David.
- Tuffy, Joanna.
- Varadkar, Leo.
- Walsh, Brian.
- White, Alex.
Níl
- Boyd Barrett, Richard.
- Broughan, Thomas P.
- Calleary, Dara.
- Collins, Joan.
- Collins, Niall.
- Colreavy, Michael.
- Cowen, Barry.
- Crowe, Seán.
- Daly, Clare.
- Doherty, Pearse.
- Donnelly, Stephen S.
- Dooley, Timmy.
- Ellis, Dessie.
- Ferris, Martin.
- Flanagan, Luke 'Ming'.
- Fleming, Sean.
- Fleming, Tom.
- Grealish, Noel.
- Halligan, John.
- Healy, Seamus.
- Healy-Rae, Michael.
- Higgins, Joe.
- Kelleher, Billy.
- Kitt, Michael P.
- Mac Lochlainn, Pádraig.
- McConalogue, Charlie.
- McDonald, Mary Lou.
- McGrath, Finian.
- McGrath, Mattie.
- McGrath, Michael.
- McLellan, Sandra.
- Martin, Micheál.
- Moynihan, Michael.
- Murphy, Catherine.
- Naughten, Denis.
- Nulty, Patrick.
- Ó Caoláin, Caoimhghín.
- Ó Cuív, Éamon.
- Ó Fearghaíl, Seán.
- Ó Snodaigh, Aengus.
- O'Brien, Jonathan.
- O'Dea, Willie.
- O'Sullivan, Maureen.
- Pringle, Thomas.
- Shortall, Róisín.
- Smith, Brendan.
- Stanley, Brian.
- Tóibín, Peadar.
- Troy, Robert.
- Wallace, Mick.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Paul Kehoe and Emmet Stagg; Níl, Deputies Seán Ó Fearghaíl and Aengus Ó Snodaigh.
Question declared carried.
