Yates lets rip over public sector pay bill

STRINGENT cuts across the public sector are needed if Ireland is to ride out the recession, according to businessman and former government minister Ivan Yates.

Speaking on RTÉ radio yesterday, Mr Yates outlined a shopping list of instant cuts that could save much-needed capital for the Government. The managing director of Celtic bookmakers said huge cuts were needed in health, education, payroll and the public capital programme to eliminate the massive “waste” within the public sector.

Mr Yates specifically targeted public sector pay, which currently stands at €19 billion.

The former Fine Gael minister highlighted the fact that the chief of staff of the Irish Defence Forces, Dermot Earley, has a bigger salary than his counterpart in Britain, despite the fact that Ireland is a neutral county.

All the top brass, the DPP, CSO head, were all on big money. “Take the judiciary, they are the second best paid in the world.”

He said we need to adjust the salaries of all our top positions.

“We used to have (Government) departments with four or five assistant secretaries. Now they have 13 assistant secretaries. We used to have county and city managers with one assistant county manager or city manager. We now have nine directors of service and you go look to them to get someone to have a spokesman and you can’t get anybody.”

Mr Yates continued: “For a country with a population the size of Manchester, we have 800 quangos. In the Department of Transport alone, there are 37 regulatory and other agencies.

You take the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. We have 1,000 people working there, we have 14 agencies and we have 35 city and county enterprise boards, doing what with 500,000 unemployed? I could go on and on in terms of waste.”

He also said too much was paid to professors and there were too many places offered in the education sector.

“The real waste is in third level. We are spending €1.9bn in third level.

“University professors on four and six hours teaching a week are on €200,000. We have too many places in our colleges. We can’t educate our way out of this recession,” he said.

Mr Yates also advocated a substantial cull in those employed in administrative positions within the health service.

“When we abolished the nine health boards and set up the HSE... we actually added 1,900 administrators. If it was in any sort of private organisation, they would have to go,” he said.