Have Cowen & Co the guts to make the cuts?

CUT staff, cut expenditure, but improve services for the public.

That is the task the Government set itself with the launch of the Transforming Public Services mission statement. But can it actually be done? And if so, why has it taken the Government so long to set about doing it?

The origins of yesterday’s mission statement lie in an analysis commissioned by the then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern in January 2007. He asked the international economic think-tank, the OECD, to review the public service in its entirety and see what problems existed.