Measures take 'machete' to frontline jobs

REACTION:THE GOVERNMENT has "taken the machete" to public service jobs with its proposal to further reduce numbers in the sector, according to Fianna Fáil spokesman on public expenditure Seán Fleming.

Describing the plan as “the weakest document on public sector reform ever produced by any government”, Mr Fleming said there should be a figure below which frontline service workers should not be allowed to drop.

“There’s no mention of protecting frontline services in this. It looks as if they’ve just taken the machete to the numbers and don’t care about the delivery of services,” he said.

Mr Fleming also criticised Minister for Public Expenditure Brendan Howlin’s comments about decentralisation, claiming he was making a “big announcement” about cancelling the 40 projects that had never been started. “This is the biggest spin in this actual document . . . There’s no news item in something that hasn’t happened for eight years, ain’t going to happen next year either,” he said.

The only commitment on so-called quangos was one to establish new bodies, he insisted. However, he welcomed the cap on holidays for new entrants to the public service.

Sinn Féin’s spokeswoman on public expenditure and reform Mary Lou McDonald claimed the Government wanted to protect “the high-rollers”.

Ms McDonald said she fully understood the need for public sector reform and had initially seen the establishment of a new Government department to oversee necessary changes as a “promising sign”.

However, “instead of a radical reform agenda, we are just getting an agenda that’s about cutting jobs”, she insisted.

Ms McDonald described the Government’s document as a “really disappointing piece of work” which was “really light on analysis”.

She said the only “concrete” proposal was to “take thousands more workers out of the system”, which would mean fewer staff to deliver services.

“There comes a point where you can’t do more with less,” said Ms McDonald.

On the reduction in State agencies, she said “a cull of bodies is not the way to go”.

The continuing public service recruitment embargo was deepening the crisis in the public health service, she added.

Meanwhile, People Before Profit Alliance TD Richard Boyd Barrett described Mr Howlin’s announcement on further reductions in public service numbers as “nothing short of the destruction of jobs”.

Mr Boyd Barrett said it would prove impossible to maintain essential services if the reductions went ahead and described yesterday’s announcement as “yet another turnaround” by the Government.

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation expressed grave concern at the failure of the Government to protect nursing and midwifery and other frontline posts from further reductions in the next three years.

The health service has already lost 3,100 nursing/midwifery posts, in an uncontrolled and unmanaged way, the organisation said.

This is resulting in patient care being compromised and frontline services being curtailed and sometimes even closed, it said.

Further uncontrolled downsizing of the public service can only result in a further contraction of essential services and a reduction in the quality of care available to patients, it added.