Turnipnomics

Turnipman and Pretty Boy have exceeded all expectations.

The failure of the 2008 emergency budget to address the problem of a bloated, incompetent, inefficient public service is as annoying as it is unsurprising. The Irish public service has been allowed to increase in size and cost, completely out of proportion to increases in the population size and rate of inflation and to the services being provided. This is so grotesquely unfunny. One of the major costs to the economy, a cost that is dead in terms of return or value or productivity, has been left utterly unaddressed.

This is no more than plain cowardice where a collection of petty and small cuts and savings are substituted for one large cut that will really make a difference. No only have the resulting savings not been achieved but the problem of ever increasing and ever more costly public service is left unsolved.

The potential savings available if both the size and the cost of the public service were reduced is very substantial. These are enduring savings that will make a large contribution to the country’s overall long-term economic welfare.

In the years 1990 to 2007, the population increased by 23.77%. Over the same interval, the numbers in employment in the public service increased by 35.03%. The direct salary costs of the public service increased by 217.20% while the Consumer Price Index increased by 66.34% in those years. See this for a more detailed analysis.

If both the numbers of public servants and their costs increased in line with population growth and the Consumer Price Index, the increased cost over the years 1990 to 2007 would have been 105.88%. Note that this does not assume that any efficiencies and economies of loading or scope or scale would have been achieved. Instead the increase was 217.20%, more than twice what would have been expected, without efficiencies being achieved.

What did we all get for this abnormal expansion of the public service? Has the quality of services doubled? For example, has twice as much crime been solved or has crime reduced by 50%?

The cost per so-called public service per head of population increased from €1,612.09 in 1990 to €4,131.57 in 2007. That is an increase of 156.29%, well over twice the rate of inflation.

A family of four people now pays €16,526.28 for the privilege of having a public service. Does that represent anything like value for money? Not a fucking chance. What does your average family get for this huge expenditure? Bear in mind that this is just the salary costs and excludes all the other public service costs. This is just the cost of administration and management. Everything else is extra that you and I also pay for.

In the midst of this offensive joke of increasing public service costs over the last 19 years and especially over the last 11 years, Fianna Fail inserted public service pay benchmarking which has lead to a greater inflation of public service costs. Benchmarking was meant to deliver efficiencies but it has promoted and magnified manifest inefficiencies.

During an interval when productivity of the general population increased, that of the public service decreased while their cost also increased disproportionately. Put simply, there are more public servants doing less and costing much more than ever before.

We truly get the government we deserve. In the absence of a competent opposition, Fianna Fail has relinquished control of the country to public servants who have spinelessly allowed their numbers and costs to balloon without control.