The Cedar Lounge Revolution

This public sector ‘reform’? Why, just hand over parts of it to the private sector. June 30, 2011

Got to love the use of terminology in the current recession. I pointed recently to some entertaining rhetoric, but what of this?

In a letter to heads of departments, secretary general of the Department of Public Expenditure Robert Watt said that in their options for cost savings under the Government’s forthcoming comprehensive review of expenditure …the Government wanted a full list of options “and we as public service managers should be forthright in putting forward bold, creative ambitious and even unpalatable savings and reform measures, leaving the Government maximum scope to exercise its decision-making function”.

And this creativity? This ambition? This unpalatable ‘reform’? It would appear that it involves considering a handover to the private sector.

They should consider setting out human resource changes and structural reforms that would need to be in place to generate further savings and efficiencies – “both measures that would come within the remit of the Croke Park agreement and those that would go beyond its agenda as currently specified”.

Departments should consider identifying “self-contained areas of processing tasks that could be considered for outsourcing/transfer to the private sector”.

And

Mr Watt suggested no agency operating under a department remit should be considered untouchable. Departments should include in their proposals options to introduce “reasonable co-payment mechanisms to offset in part the costs associated with delivery of public services, especially (but not exclusively) in cases where lower-cost delivery channels are available”. Co-payments effectively mean the public having to make a contribution towards the cost of services. Examples include the 50 cent prescription charge introduced last year by then minister for health Mary Harney for medical card patients but later abolished.

Co-payment – eh? Not a word of course about social solidarity, of universal provision, of such provision underpinned by proper levels of taxation. Instead the continuing drum beat that implicitly calls for means-testing, privatization and reduction of the state sphere continues unabated.

It’s hardly a surprise that this crisis is being used as an opportunity to reshape the very nature of our societal contract – thin and … as it may be. But that the proposals are so forthright is dispiriting.

One would love to think that this is merely the expression of an extreme and that what will actually occur will be much less radical. One would like to think that a government where the local franchise of the self-described Socialist International is a key component might balk at such measures. One may well be disappointed.