Testers show Government who is in the driving seat

Inside Politics: The ability of a trade union to get an official body to sanction its determination to block long-overdue reform of the driver-testing system clearly has negative implications for road safety and for the future of civil service monopolies.

It also says something profound about the paralysis of the Irish political system when it comes to dealing with issues that directly affect people's lives.

Most of the critical decisions that directly impact on voters are no longer made in the Dáil but in the social partnership talks and by the various bodies that have been established to interpret and implement agreements made by the social partners.

The consequence is that vested interests have been given a veto over the common good.

There were good reasons why the social partnership model was put in place in 1987 at a time of economic crisis but now it has developed a stranglehold over decision-making.

This is hampering the ability of the Government to make decisions on fronts ranging from national economic policy to privatisation and from the way the health service is run to matters of life and death on our roads.

The lack of democratic accountability has stifled discussion about some of the major shifts in Irish society over the past two decades.

For instance, the growing imbalance in pay, conditions and pensions between the public sector and the private sector has happened with almost no debate in the political system and very little outside it.

The thwarting of the Minister for Transport's plans to take decisive action on driving tests is a reflection of just how stifling the whole system of social partnership has become. When the demands of a small group of public servants are allowed to take precedence over a Government policy designed to save lives then something is seriously wrong.

There are also wider implications for the civil service arising from the decision that driving tests cannot be outsourced. There must now be a serious doubt whether the Government can ever outsource jobs from the civil service, regardless of public need.

Of course, the lion's share of responsibility for all this rests with Government. It has signed up to one social partnership agreement after another, and conceded a remarkable deal on benchmarking to the entire public service to buy industrial peace without getting anything tangible in return. What is worse, the Fianna Fáil-PD coalition is lining up to do it all over again.

The first benchmarking deal was designed as a critical part of the general election strategy in 2002.

The benchmarking body was set up to consider pay rises for public servants in the year before the election and mandated to produce a report immediately after it. The objective was to secure industrial peace in the run-up to the election, with the goodies to be handed out after it was over.

Everything ran according to plan. The Coalition came back with an increased majority and the benchmarking body duly delivered a €1.1 billion package of pay increases for public servants, including politicians.

The ostensible reason for the awards was that public pay had fallen behind that of the private sector. Nobody really believed that contention at the time, and subsequent figures have shown that public servants are paid up to 20 per cent more than comparable grades in the private sector, as well has having job security and superb pensions.

There might even have been some argument for benchmarking if the public service had been required to implement genuine productivity but that did not happen.

It was an opportunity to sort out the scandal of the driving-testing queues, to get gardaí to accept the need for reform, including the acceptance of a Garda Reserve, to get the unions to accept the right of management to manage the health service and the semi-State sector.

All that emerged was a series of empty formulae that resulted in no real change in work practices.

The next benchmarking process is already under way and the template is exactly as before. The body is in place and will deliberate for over a year before producing a report just after the next election.

It is mandated to take account of public service pensions and job security in its findings so it will be interesting to see how it will reach the expected conclusion that public servants are still less well off than comparable workers in the private sector.

Whatever the outcome of the forthcoming election, the Government will have little choice but to accept the benchmarking report.

The next social partnership deal is due to be agreed in the coming months and it will also be in place before the next election.

All of which begs the question as to what real choice people will have if so many critical long-term choices are made in advance.

In the past week Fine Gael and Labour produced a policy document, The Buck Stops Here, which outlined measures they would take, if elected, to ensure greater efficiency in the public service and the political system.

Included in the proposals are the linking of pay for senior civil servants to the achievement of specified targets, the introduction of open recruitment to senior public service positions and a radical overhaul of public spending so that outputs are routinely measured.

The only problem with the Opposition plan is that by the time of the election decisions on how the public service is run for the next few years will already have been made.

Going on past performance, the public good will again be sacrificed for electoral gain.