Gilmore says another review of public sector unnecessary

A decision to pay the OECD almost €500,000 for a major review of the public service was criticised as unnecessary because of the number of such reports already available.

Labour leader Eamon Gilmore said: "isn't it time to stop studying the public service and to start reforming it?"

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern had told the Dáil that the Government approved the review to benchmark the public service in Ireland against comparable countries and to make recommendations as to future directions for public service reform.

The review, to be published early next year, would look at key overall aspects and five case studies examining specific questions in areas such as health and local government services. "For the OECD to develop this holistic approach to reviewing the public service as an entity and to apply it in the first instance to Ireland, we have increased our contribution to the OECD on a once-off basis by €490,000," Mr Ahern said.

Mr Gilmore, however, said there had been studies by the NESF, the Comptroller & Auditor General, the benchmarking report and the strategic management initiative. "What does the Taoiseach expect the OECD to tell us that we have not already been told in many of the reports published before?" he asked.

"Is this merely some kind of substitute for inaction on the part of the Government to introduce the required reforms? Some of these are extremely simple in nature, for example putting in place staff to answer telephone calls instead of requiring members of the public to push various buttons . . ." Mr Ahern said there had been numerous reforms, including revenue customer charges and improvements in the social welfare service and online motor tax systems.

He said the main reasons for the OECD report was to discover "how connections can be made and how people can work for the system rather then the individual departments or agencies. The record of other countries in this regard is better than ours."