Civil service ‘should hire younger people’

YOUNGER, more talented people should be hired to the civil service instead of paying higher salaries to those who “haven’t done a very good job”, says Fine Gael’s spokesman on Communications, Leo Varadkar.

The party’s new policy document on public sector reform, Reinventing Government, proposes capping pay at €200,000 and says a third of all new senior appointments to the civil service would be given to people outside the system.

Mr Varadkar, who is one of the youngest TDs in the Dáil, dismissed claims by Fianna Fáil that this would result in a flight of talent from the civil service.

“I don’t think that the people who we are currently paying €250,000 to in the public sector are all that talented, frankly, that they haven’t done a very good job. I do think we’ll be able to find people at €200,000 who will be able to do a good job, potentially younger people and people who haven’t been part of the system.”

Minister of State for Labour Affairs, Dara Calleary, said the proposals were “populist”. He said: “I’ve no doubt it will appeal to people. But it will come at the cost of opening the [public] service up to a range of talented people who are on a range of higher salaries in the private sector.”

But Mr Varadkar said there are many people in the private sector with jobs that don’t pay salaries as high as €200,000 but who would “have a lot to add” to the public sector.

Fine Gael has also been defending a proposal in the document to dismantle the HSE, which SIPTU said would lead to the health service being “sold off” to private insurance companies.

Health spokesperson James Reilly said it was a “fundamental misunderstanding to think that putting the patient at the centre of health budgeting and providing universal health insurance to all could be equated with privatising the health service.”

Following the publication of the plan on Sunday, some Fine Gael TDs were once again left dismayed with their leader, Enda Kenny, who failed to grasp the detail of Reinventing Government in a radio interview.

The party’s TDs believe the policy document will be a success with the electorate, but some expressed disappointed that the launch was overshadowed by criticism of Mr Kenny’s interview with RTÉ’s This Week programme on Sunday.