THE GOVERNMENT is seeking to generate savings of €310 million this year on the public service pay and pensions bill – the same level as sought by the previous administration, the Department of Finance has said.
Trade unions are confident that this target, comprising about €200 million on the pay bill and €100 million on public service pension costs, can be achieved under measures under the Croke Park agreement.
Minister for Communications Pat Rabbitte on Sunday warned that public servants’ pay could be cut again unless “significant savings” were made under the deal.
The first official reports calculating the savings made under the Croke Park deal are expected within weeks.
They are likely to show that between 4,000 and 5,000 staff have left the public service since the deal was ratified last June. It is estimated that each job taken out will produce an average saving of €55,000. Other savings will come from changes to Garda and prison officer overtime and from HSE reforms to use agency staff, which could save €40 million.
The country’s largest public service union Impact forecast yesterday that the Government’s €310 million target would be exceeded. It said Mr Rabbitte’s comments did not represent any change in Government policy.
“The agreement reached between the previous government and the IMF-EU-ECB is also explicit that, while the Croke Park agreement remains in place, it must deliver the required savings, otherwise new measures to address the public service pay bill would be required. None of this contradicts Minister Rabbitte’s comments.
“Impact has always been clear that the need for reforms to deliver verifiable savings is explicit in the agreement, which must be fully implemented as an alternative to compulsory redundancies or further pay cuts.”
Separately yesterday, Mr Rabbitte criticised senior management in the public service over their attitude to reform.
“There have been opportunities during the boom – even opportunities when the unions were proffering changes that might profitably be made – and management in the public service were backward in coming forward.
“If they don’t come to the table and do their job in terms of devising smarter ways of working, devising changes that ought to be implemented, restructuring the working week, all of that kind of thing, it would be very difficult for any minister to effect the changes that quite frankly we need.”
He said a lot of bad habits had been learned during the boom. Official understanding was that “every problem could be fixed with money. and every problem could be fixed with a nod and a wink.
“It’s very difficult to blame people in those circumstances when that was the environment in which they were working,” he added.
