Our two-tier society - It’s time to lance this festering boil

LIKE a First World War soldier, cold and wet, huddled in a stinking trench, dreading the moment that the incessant, creeping barrage pounding enemy lines ends and he will be ordered across fields covered in barbed wire to face scything machine guns, we know we are in a very difficult situation, but fear worse may yet come.

Yesterday’s figures on public sector employment will add to the feeling that things are out of control and that unless some sort of reality is brought into play immediately our situation may indeed get very much worse.

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) report that in the year to June 8,600 more people were employed in the public sector. This figure does not take into account any changes in the health services.

More than 5,000 of these jobs — 4,600 in education and 700 extra gardaí — were created to satisfy our incessant demands for improved services, so any analysis must be tailored to acknowledge that.

The Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association (ISME) did not feel so constrained and used the occasion to demand that the axe fall on 30,000 public jobs.

Though, as taxpayers across the world are funding bank rescues rather than schools or hospitals, a period of introspection or even silence might have been more appropriate from the free markets’ Praetorian Guard. However, it is impossible to argue with ISME when they point out that as the public sector added workers to its pay roll in the six months to June, in the same period 16,500 jobs were lost in the private sector. Even as our ability to pay public servants was undermined we were employing more. And the bill is staggering.

A back-of-an-envelope calculation suggests that 8,600 extra public servants, at an average of €942.81 a week — a CSO figure — cost more than €420,000,000 year. So much for 1% levies and 50c on a packet of fags.

A total of 262,600 people were employed in the public sector (excluding health) in June 2008 compared to 254,000 in June 2007.

When he spoke in the Dáil on Wednesday the Taoiseach was clear. He said that the public service must be as competitive as the private sector.

“Our public servants ... must accept the need for openness to change ... they must show flexibility and be willing to meet the rigours of performance management and external accountability.”

He also spoke of “specific measures” in the coming weeks and “a rigorous appraisal of staffing levels, underpinned by external expertise”. Fighting talk indeed but as Mr Cowen has been responsible for public sector reform for four years you would imagine that the time for talking is long gone. The task force on the public sector is due to report next month and that will undoubtedly trigger even more prevarication.

This issue has become dangerously divisive and must be resolved quickly. No one can object to paying higher taxes to fund improvements in services but it is unacceptable that taxes are increased to sustain a sector that is inflexible, untouchable, insulated from reality and in far, far too many instances overstaffed.

Mr Cowen’s government is facing greater challenges than any of their immediate predecessors — the economy, Lisbon, the banks, unemployment, climate change and energy dependence and a festering discontent over our two-tier society.

The time has come to establish a super ministry to lance this boil. A ministry whose sole responsibility would be public sector reform and efficiency. Give it real teeth and limited time, we can’t afford anything else.