Time to move on from the Croke Park Agreement

I’m now the Green Party’s spokesperson on Public Expenditure and Reform. Here’s what I had to say at our Press Conference in Buswell's Hotel on the first anniversary of the Fine Gael - Labour Government being formed.


The one area where the Labour Party is in control is in the management of the public service, but what real reform have we seen there in the last year? The response to the crisis seems to be to make cuts across the board, rather than prioritising spending in some areas and changing work practices in other areas, to make the same overall saving.  Such an approach might encounter greater resistance from particular vested interests but this is a time for taking courageous decisions.  If the Government can explain and justify why they are doing it I think they will even get certain opposition support, including our own.  


It is time to move on from the Croke Park Agreement. The Public Service Agreement 2010-2014 was a cautious document that failed to grasp the nettle of institutional reform.

Rather than relying exclusively on a voluntary redundancy scheme, why did they not tell the small number of people who are not able to do their jobs, that they would have to be among the ones to go?  Public Servants must be promoted on merit, not seniority.  Performance must be better measured, competence rewarded and under-performance penalised. Michael Bloomberg mayor of New York said: “If you can't measure it, you can't manage it” Mandatory redundancy is better for the State, better for the tax-payer and better for the individual.

 The culture of mediocrity is some of our public services has to go. Automatic pay increments must also be reconsidered, and  root and branch reform of productivity and performance in the public sector is now required. It doesn’t automatically follow that someone is better at their job after doing it for fifteen years. I suspect that in may instances the reverse is true. We need innovation, new ideas and out of the box thinking. That can be difficult if you’ve been working from the same cubicle for a decade or more. I’m delighted that the new Secretary General in Finance ran juice-bars in the south of France, we need more of that kind of background and experience.

Why does it still have to take an age to move people across departments and agencies, to the shore up the critical areas where we need them most?" There needs to be greater horizontal movement of staff between Government Departments and between the Civil Service and other State agencies.

This is a hard time to be in Government, but also a good time to be a Minister.  You have a unique chance to show you can manage your department well, using limited resources to still achieve great effect.  I don't know what the Taoiseach's Ministerial score card looks like, but at the end of the first year, I am not sure any of them can be sure of an honours grade.

And they're off

It's all about the finish line.

That pic shows one of the UpStart crews getting ready for postering on Merrion Square this evening. I like their ideas about using creative election posters to spark a debate about creativity and the value of arts in public life.

It's also all about jobs. Many of the new jobs created in last few years have stemmed from the green policies that we've introduced in Government, and we can further if we're returned to the next Dáil.

I'm told that over 6,000 contractors have registered with the Home Energy Savings Scheme. That's real jobs, right now. Much of the money taken in in the carbon levy goes right back the people through grant aid and direct support for upgrading social housing.

It makes perfect sense to do this - to tackle climate change and to reduce our dependency on the €6 Billion of oil and gas that we import every year, particularly when oil has touched $100 a barrel again. Sure, that price goes up and down, but the direction has been upward, and the more we can wean ourselves off fossil fuels, the better.

Renewable energy is another plank of the green jobs strategy. It's about more than wind, it's about ocean energy: waves, tides and currents. It's about willow and other forestry crops that can provide fuels, and an income for farmers. It's about retrofitting office-blocks, homes and schools to cut down on energy use and create jobs in doing so. Energy efficiency and insulation is at the core of all this.

It's about the digital revolution - jobs in cloud computing, and in start-ups like the Media Cube on the campus of Dún Laoghaire's Institute of Art Design and Technology. You can see it in the presence of new media firms in Ireland like Facebook, and in new initiatives in cloud computing like the work of Salesforce over in Sandyford Business Park.

It's about design - Encouraging innovation and good design can spawn innovation, creativity and new employment. That's what happened when the Kilkenny Design Workshops were set up in the 1960's. Design has contributed to Denmark's economy and identity for over a century, and it's something we should be mainstreaming as part of our economic revival. There's signs of this happening through the Government Policy on Architecture and through Dublin's bid for World Design Capital 2014. I'm also enthused by groups like Upstart that are promoting creativity through their innovative posters that we'll be seeing more of over the next few weeks. I bumped into them at Merrion Square this afternoon and they're full of ideas. Arts, culture, design and creativity are all interlinked, and my hunch is that they've a lot to offer to Ireland's recovery.

Meanwhile back in the Dáil it was a whirlwind of a day. The Taoiseach gave a speech that was suprisingly statesmanlike, and quoted some great lines from the Poet John O’Donohue that are worth repeating:

"May you be hospitable to criticism. May you never put yourself at the centre of things. May you act not from arrogance but out of service. May you work on yourself, Building up and refining the ways of your mind. May those who work for you know you see and respect them. May you learn to cultivate the art of presence In order to engage with those who meet you… May you have a mind that loves frontiers so that you can evoke the bright fields that lie beyond the view of the regular eye. May you have good friends to mirror your blind spots."

It's good advice to anyone who aspires to public life.

Enda's speech lacked gravitas, and while at pains to respect Cowen's family, failed to rise beyond the usual point-scoring. Gilmore spoke about one Ireland with some well-written words. John Gormley made a strong plea for electoral form and looked towards a reduction in the number of TDs with half being elected from a list system, which seems to work well in the New Zealand system.

After a quick coffee with Senator Mark Dearey I headed out the Rock Road to Blackrock and on towards Dún Laoghaire, getting used to a new ladder and stopping to climb a few lamp-posts, posters in hand and cable-ties between my teeth. I grabbed a slice of pizza in the office, met some of our poster crews, and headed off for a few hours canvassing, some more postering and then back home to write this.

These are busy times. Let's pace ourselves between now and the 25th February.