Cowen silent on civil service job losses

FINANCE MINISTER Brian Cowen has refused to say whether an “efficiency review” of the public service will result in redundancies.

In the budget, Mr Cowen said the review of all administrative spending across government departments and State bodies would begin without delay. Each department will be required to provide specific proposals to “maximise administrative savings” to the Department of Finance by March 1.

Finance will then evaluate the proposals, using “outside efficiency experts” if needed, before reporting to the Government, which will decide on what actions should be taken.