THE GOVERNMENT is considering offering a new voluntary redundancy package for staff in the wider public service in the new year.
Minister of State for public service reform Dara Calleary signalled the potential for a new scheme when he said departments had been asked to have revised action plans for the implementation of the Croke Park agreement in place by mid-January.
If any departments believed they had spare capacity, “they are free to make proposals around voluntary redundancies which will be considered by the Government”, he said.
In an interview with The Irish Times, Mr Calleary said within the terms of the Croke Park deal and available resources, there could be potential for other voluntary redundancy schemes in the public service next year.
Last month the Government launched a voluntary redundancy programme and early retirement scheme for administrative and support personnel in the health service. Staff were offered redundancy terms of three weeks’ pay per year of service, capped at two years’ salary.
However, the number of health service personnel who are leaving under these arrangements – about 1,730 – is considerably less than the 5,000 originally anticipated by the Government.
Mr Calleary’s comments mark the first occasion the Government has indicated that staff in other parts of the public service could be offered a voluntary redundancy package.
Mr Calleary also strongly defended the Croke Park agreement on public service pay and reform. He maintained that, despite the criticism of the deal, it had restored trust in industrial relations in the public service, “which was gone because of the various decisions we had to take in terms of pension levy and salary cuts”.
He said achievements made under the agreement included new rostering arrangements for gardaí and the transfer of about 1,000 community welfare staff from the Health Service Executive (HSE) to the Department of Social Protection from next month.
He accepted the HSE redundancy programme had been undersubscribed but maintained it would still generate substantial savings. He also argued it would not have come about without the Croke Park deal.
However, the Minister criticised the pace of reform under the Croke Park pact and said “we all wish it had been quicker”.
It was frustrating that public service management had not used the interval between the signing of the agreement last March and the formal ratification of the process in the summer to work on their own plans for reform, Mr Calleary said.
He said management should have used the time informally to get proposals ready and to treat this (the reform plans) seriously.
“They should have been far more ambitious. They had a lot of time,” he added.
Mr Calleary said he was determined there would be no repeat of the situation whereby a number of government departments and agencies had missed the official deadline in September for submitting their own action plans for the implementation of the agreement.
He said the Government would not tolerate delays on the revised action plans to be delivered in January.
He said there could be “no messing” with this deadline.
The Minister said public service reform was not just an “any other business” item on the agenda. He said it was the Government’s number one item and this was how it should be considered on the agenda of every department.
In his interview, Mr Calleary maintained that controversial elements of the public service reform programme, such as the elimination of time off for civil servants to cash pay cheques even though most are paid by electronic fund transfer, should have been addressed years ago under the benchmarking process.
He also reiterated that savings generated before last June – such as the reduction in numbers under the incentivised early retirement scheme – will not count towards the Government’s target under the Croke Park agreement.