Days of ‘poor public servants’ are past

THERE are “undoubtedly many poor public servants” and their days are “numbered”, Labour Affairs Minister Dara Calleary has said.

Mr Calleary, the minister with responsibility for public service transformation, told the Seanad that “significant change must be delivered in the public service to accommodate a reduction in service numbers in a climate of industrial peace”.

He was speaking about the Croke Park deal on public service pay and pensions.

Under the deal, public servants are guaranteed no further pay cuts and no compulsory redundancies up to 2014 provided they co-operate with reforms that would produce savings.

The Government has informed the Irish Congress of Trade Unions that it intends to honour the deal, and won’t implement further pay cuts in the budget. But Mr Calleary made clear that Croke Park was a “two-way deal” and that the participating unions would have to meet their side of it. “If one side fails to deliver on the deal, we do not have a deal,” he said, according to the transcript of his Seanad remarks.

He also sent a blunt warning to those unions still refusing to sign up to the deal, saying they were not covered by the agreement.

“The Government considers that any party that chooses to remain outside the provisions of the agreement or that opposes its implementation cannot expect to benefit from the commitments it gave as part of the agreement,” he said.

Union sources believe that is a shot across the bows of the Teachers’ Union of Ireland which remains on industrial action in more than 250 schools and has not engaged in talks on the reforms.

Responding to senators who raised the issue of non-productive public servants, Mr Calleary said there were many fine people in the public service. But he acknowledged there were also workers who left the public service down. “There are undoubtedly many poor public servants and we have been incredibly restricted to date as to how we deal with that and poor performance... With regard to those who let the public service down, however, their days are numbered.”