THE NEW review of the Croke Park agreement will include savings on expenditure in the public service which were made before the deal was formally ratified last summer.
The Department of Finance confirmed last night that the review of the agreement, now under way, would cover the period running from the end of March 2010 to the end of March 2011.
However, while negotiations on the Croke Park deal concluded in March 2010, the deal was not ratified by the public services committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions until June. In the intervening period individual public service unions briefed members on the terms of the agreement, sought and received clarifications on some elements and carried out a series of ballots.
The department said the Government had decided that the agreement would be reviewed on an annual 12-month rolling basis, with a starting date of March 2010.
The move, which was not announced publicly, represents a change in policy from that set out by the previous administration.
Former minister of state for public service reform Dara Calleary said last autumn that only savings generated within the agreement would be counted as part of the Croke Park process.
He indicated that savings generated by the reduction in public service numbers up to that point under the government’s moratorium on recruitment and the incentivised early-retirement scheme would not be considered.
The effect of the new policy on the time covered by the review means that savings as a result of the moratorium and other measures between March and June 2010 can now be included by Government departments as part of the Croke Park process.
Details of the change in policy have emerged as part of the submissions made by various Government departments to the national body charged with overseeing the implementation of the Croke Park deal, which is carrying out the review.
In its submission the Department of Health said the numbers employed in the health service had fallen by 4,179 between the end of the first quarter of 2010 and the end of the first quarter of 2011.
It said that in addition to the savings arising from cuts in staffing levels, revised terms for laboratory workers and new arrangements for agency personnel, the real achievement in implementing the Croke Park agreement had been “to continue to provide the same level and quality of services with much reduced budgets”.
The Department of the Environment said that between early 2010 and the end of March 2011, local authorities had shed 1,630 staff.
The new review, being carried out by the National Implementation Body is expected to be completed in the next week or so.