Key services face further funding cuts

ALL “low hanging fruit” has now been cut from the public service, meaning key services will have to suffer mass staff departures and further funding cuts over the coming months.

Public Expenditure Minister Brendan Howlin yesterday told the Institute of Public Administration’s National Conference that the Government faced stark policy choices because the “low hanging fruit had already been cut from the public service”.

“Resources will be squeezed further and staff numbers will fall, with significant departures expected in the coming months,” Mr Howlin said.

February 29 is the deadline for public servants to retire with a pension and lump sum unaffected by reductions introduced in the last budget. Significant numbers are likely to avail of that opportunity, leaving large holes in the public service.

Added to this is the likely impact of any funding cuts in the upcoming budget.

Mr Howlin said the terms for public service reform set out under the Croke Park deal were not set in stone and had to evolve in response to “changing circumstances”.

“I know that the burden of reductions in expenditure and staff numbers is being acutely felt by staff across the public service. I wish that further cuts were avoidable. But the harsh reality is that they are not.”

He said the Government will take up to 25,000 people out of the public service by 2015, which will pose strains on those providing public services.

“Managers will be required to manage those pressures over the coming weeks and months,” Mr Howlin said.

However, the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, John McGuinness, slated the Croke Park deal, saying it was not working and questioned if the state can afford it.

“If those involved in the Croke Park deal would only listen to their frontline workers who are the band aid holding this system together, they would understand clearly that they want reform, they want to be part of that reform and they are encouraging their unions and middle management to do just that but are being ignored.” he told RTÉ.

The Institute of Public Administration’s head of research, Richard Boyle, proposed that each minister in charge of a department should become his or her own finance minister, deciding within agreed spending limits where money should best be spent.

Picture: Public Expenditure Minister Brendan Howlin at the 2011 Institute of Public Administration conference. Picture: Orla Murray