Public sector talks - A chance to see if reform is succeeding

Negotiations between Government and public sector unions begin at the Labour Relations Commission tomorrow.

The Government’s objective is to reduce the €500m a year public sector sick pay bill — plus another €300m in the HSE — by changing the rules.

It goes without saying that every worker should have meaningful, and if necessary, long-term support if they become ill.

This must be said though, because much of the public sector has come to imagine that every suggestion of reform is part of a concerted attack on them rather than an effort to balance the books to secure some sort of future for everyone in this society.

As in all such negotiations the final agreement will be more generous than initial proposals. In any event, they will be very different to arrangements in other sectors. Nevertheless, they will achieve nothing unless public sector managers are given the means, or rediscover the appetite blunted by bizarre regulations, to manage the issue far more proactively.

What will be interesting is the attitudes adopted by the two parties.

That will give an idea of how the Croke Park project is actually going despite what its cheerleaders promise. It will also give an indication of how determined Government is to impose reform.

Of course that entire process is a long way short of perfect.

It can’t be above suspicion because it is primarily a forum where public workers talk to public workers about the arrangements that sustain them all.

They are, after all, human. The National Implementation Body, the group charged with implementing the Croke Park deal, is made up of an “independent chair (so described despite being a career public servant) and nominees from public service management and the public service committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions”.

In that setting it’s far too easy to imagine that the culture that gave us shoe, rent and underwear allowances, as well as days off to go to local race meetings and festivals, might prevail over, say, Ryanair’s relentless value-for-money philosophy.

Just last Tuesday Public Expenditure and Reform Minister Brendan Howlin confirmed these suspicions when batting away a Dáil question. He was asked, by Fine Gael’s Eoghan Murphy, why the private sector is not represented on the implementation body.

The answer was an unacceptably dismissive and patronising “we’ll look at it if needs be”. Not good enough.

Today we report on a perk that is almost feudal in the inequity it sustains. It is the arrangement whereby some employees of universities, none poorly paid, can send their children to college without paying fees.

Though time is reducing the numbers entitled to this arrangement it is impossible to see how it can survive even one more academic year, especially as so many of those very parents are the most vocal in demanding more resources for the cash-strapped sector.

Some have even resisted Government suggestions that they take pay cuts to bring them under the €200,000-a-year threshold.

By ending this insider deal it would show that Croke Park has the kind of intent and teeth it must have.

However, the suspicion must be that the issue is not even being discussed by our “independent” implementation board.

In any event it would be impossible to reintroduce college fees if this indulgence were to stand. These are the kind of issues Government must act decisively and quickly on rather than waiting for time to take the sting out of their responsibilities.