Ken O’Flynn identifies €175m in savings more than enough to fund the Christmas bonus for Social Welfare recipients

Ken O’Flynn identifies €175m in savings more than enough to fund the Christmas bonus for Social Welfare recipients
Councillor Ken O’Flynn has called on Government to pay in full the annual Christmas bonus for social welfare recipients
Councillor Ken O’Flynn described plans to cut the annual Christmas bonus as unnecessary and pointed out that if the Department of Finance had implemented its own procurement strategy drawn up in by PWC in 2002 it would now be saving a minimum of €175m per year or just 2% of procurement costs. Procurement is the acquisition of goods and/or services at the best possible total cost of ownership, in the right quantity and quality, at the right time, in the right place and from the right source for the direct benefit or use of corporations or individuals, generally via a contract.

“The Department of Finance is acting like Scrooge with regard to the Christmas’s of social welfare recipients and the elderly, yet it has failed miserably to implement the findings of a report it commissioned in 2002 and which could have saved the country millions” he said. “in point of fact a subsequent report in 2003 by the Information Society Commission, entitled 'Modernising Public Procurement', indicated that the government could potentially save up to €1 billion annually on public procurement.

“The permanent Government is cutting the Christmas bonus’s for the elderly but has failed to cut waste in the public sector” he said “I am calling on the Minister to as a matter of urgency to look for savings in the way that Government does its work. For example a Dublin engineer recently came up with a plan to save the country €1billion by redrawing the route for Metro North would reduce the cost by €1bn while streamlining public transport. Lets slash the waste in government before we cut benefits for the poor and the elderly”