If people want better quality services in education and healthcare, that means more front-line staff must be hired. And there's no blank cheque for that, writes Minister for Finance Brian Cowen
The Book of Estimates, which I will publish on Thursday, is about the efficient allocation of our resources. This is the expectation of our citizens who are contributing to prosperity through their energy, hard work and commitment.
By international standards the management of the nation's finances has been excellent, with budget surpluses delivered in eight of the last nine years. In parallel with a responsible, long-termist approach to budget policy, we have been making record investments. That year-on-year investment by Government in our social services and physical infrastructure is now having a real impact.
The Government's pay bill takes up approximately 40 per cent of overall expenditure every year. However, despite the perception created in some quarters, there has not been an increase in the share of overall current expenditure attributable to pay and pensions. It was also 40 per cent in 1997.
The Government remains committed to controlling public sector numbers - now at just over 290,000 - as part of its approach to managing public expenditure and securing better value for money. But, let's be clear, the policy is not being implemented indiscriminately. We have consistently taken the line that priority must be given to front-line and essential services.
Where necessary, the Government has been prepared to increase numbers to meet priority needs. We have held numbers in the Civil Service, the local authority, defence and non-commercial semi-state sectors at below their 2002 levels, but we have increased employment in the key areas of health, education and the Garda to improve the delivery of important services.
Health and education are labour-intensive areas. If you want better quality education and health services, we have to employ additional front-line staff in these areas. In no sense is there a blank-cheque approach to sanctioning extra posts in these areas, but we will continue to agree targeted enhancements where they are consistent with implementing Government policy and improving public service delivery.
The major increase in staffing levels has included a significant increase in front-line health service staff: an additional 2,400 medical and dental personnel, almost 8,400 additional nurses and 750 additional consultant posts. More than 8,000 other health professionals, such as speech and language therapists, physiotherapists, social care and social workers, psychologists and environmental health officers, have been appointed, as well.
I should also point out that there has been a concomitant increase in service delivery with an increase of 40 per cent since 1997 in the number of patients treated in hospitals as in-patient and daycare patients and a reduction in waiting times. Adults waiting for the most common surgical procedures will now wait on average two to five months, which we will improve on further. There has also been an increase in the elective surgery rate in public hospitals of 112 per cent between 1995 and 2004. Furthermore, there has been a marked improvement in the wide range of community services provided by the health services.
Putting additional front-line resources into our schools has been another priority of this Government. At primary level there are 27,000 teaching posts, an increase of 6,000 over the 1997 provision. In other words, one teaching post in five did not exist in 1997. The pupil-teacher ratio at primary level has fallen from 22 to one in 1996/97 to 17 to one in 2003/04. This is real progress by any measure.
At post-primary level the pupil-teacher ratio has reduced from 16 to one in 1996/97 to 13.4 to one in 2003/04. More children than ever are completing second-level education in Ireland - a real benchmark of the success of the additional resources that we have put in place.
There are now more than 5,000 primary teachers - one-fifth of all primary teachers - working solely with children with special needs. In addition to this there are nearly 6,000 special-needs assistants to provide individual support, compared with fewer than 300 in 1997.
The provision of this level of staffing will help ensure that children with special educational needs can fully meet their potential. I reject any contention that the public servants who are providing these important services are not providing value for money.
Crime prevention and crime detection has meant that more gardaí and support staff are being employed. Making sure crime does not pay and safeguarding our communities is a challenge facing all police forces, particularly in the face of ever more complex and well-resourced transnational criminal networks. Significant additional front-line resources have been given to An Garda Síochána to meet the challenges presented by the criminal community. An extra 3,000 gardaí, including recruits, have been put in the front-line of our police services since we took office in 1997.
The Government's position on public service pay is quite simple. The public service should be able to attract and retain its fair share of good quality staff at all levels. It should neither be leading the field on pay nor trailing it.
When comparing the average pay of a public service employee to the average paid to a private sector employee, it is important to point out that over half of public sector workers are in professional or technical occupations, whereas only about one in eight workers in the private sector are in such positions.
Of course, public sector pay increases are dependent, in the case of each sector, on organisation and grade, on verification of co-operation with flexibility and ongoing change, including co-operation with satisfactory implementation of the agenda for modernisation, maintenance of stable industrial relations and absence of industrial action in respect of any matters covered by the new social partnership agreement, Towards 2016.
Payment is dependent on verification of satisfactory achievement of these provisions. That is as it should be. Getting the best possible outcomes and outputs for the spending of taxpayers' money is an ongoing obligation on us all.