Ireland - Recession Prompts Public Sector Cost Cuts
As the Global economy continues to struggle, Ireland’s Prime Minister Brian Cowen has revealed cost cuts across the country’s government as recession begins to bite.
From 1994 up until last year, Ireland enjoyed a boom period, which led to high government spending. The backlash is beginning to surface, however, with unemployment doubling, and the current financial climate forcing the Prime Minister’s Government to raise income and sales tax.
In a move to increase efficiency, some 200 government agencies are to be dissolved, as well as the removal of rules that deterred many government employees from transferring to new jobs and locations.
This goes hand in hand with plans to adopt the use of a ‘shared service approach’ in the public sector, centralising areas such as Finance and Payroll. Prime Minister Cowan was quoted as saying: "While the need for reform of our public services has become increasingly clear in recent times, it is all the more essential in the unprecedented economic times in which we live.”
