PEOPLE IN top management positions "must manage their budgets. That's the way it is," Taoiseach Brian Cowen insisted as he confirmed that the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) would have to implement a 3 per cent cut.
Mr Cowen was responding to Opposition concerns following public comment by DPP James Hamilton that he could not do his job with a 3 per cent budget cut.
Mr Cowen said "every office, department and agency of State must make a contribution to the necessity to cut back costs". The DPP's office therefore "is not exempt from that requirement any more than anyone else is".
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said the DPP had "suggested that there is no fat left in that office", especially when the number of files going to his office had increased by 5 per cent.
Mr Kenny pointed out that the policy he had to deal with "covers murder, manslaughter, infanticide, fatalities in the workplace and even road traffic accidents". He said a recent EU report found that Ireland's prosecution service "has the lowest per capita expenditure of any state in Europe."
Labour leader Éamon Gilmore said: "We are all agreed that to tackle crime effectively, cases must be brought before the court and prosecuted and the people responsible put away. There is a problem in the DPP's office."
He said that with the cuts, the DPP would be forced to pass back cases to gardaí for prosecution in the District Court.
"The DPP cannot do his job effectively and gardaí will be tied up hanging around court rooms waiting for cases to come up," said Mr Gilmore.
Sinn Féin Dáil leader Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin said that "at the very least", given the concern about progressing convictions, there was "a need to establish factually the situation and act responsibly as a result".
Mr Cowen however insisted that "the factual situation is clear".
The "only fair and transparent way in which one can achieve 3 per cent payroll savings is to impose that obligation on everybody," the Taoiseach said.
