Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Paschal Donohoe is confident the Government will be able to deliver all the public service commitments it made in Budget 2017.
Mr Donohoe was speaking prior to announcing a new approach to reviewing departmental expenditure.
“Over a three year period it is my aim that we review every euro that is being spent and if we can find ways of reprioritising spend to deliver new initiatives, that’s what this review will enable,” he said.
“This year we will be spending €53.5billion on providing day-to-day services for our country. This amount of money is nearly as big as anything we’ve ever spent in the country on day-to-day services.
“I want to put in place a process that reviews that spending every year to ensure we’re getting best value for money.”
Mr Donohoe said that just as businesses make decisions on how it prioritises spending money, the Government will “have to do that with the money of the taxpayers.
"We're now implementing this process for the first time in many years to do just that, " he told Newstalk Breakfast.
“That’s why we have a public pay commission set up, to make an assessment of where we are with uncertainties on the public pay bill which is €13.6billion per year, by having an overall new collective agreement.
Mr Donohoe said it was his “ambition” to deliver the agreement after the public pay commission is finished benchmarking public pay against both the Irish private sector and similar jobs abroad.
Plans ‘torpedoed’
Mr Donohoe said that spending plans can be "torpedoed" by "unverifiable risks", citing the aftermath of the €50 million Labour Court recommendation on garda pay, and that he wanted to minimise such issues in the future.
“It is important for everybody in our country that we have a more collective and ordered wage setting within our public services and that’s why we will look to deliver a replacement to the Lansdowne Road Agreement.
“ But it will be a new bargain based on fairness to everybody, those inside our public services and those who depend on them. And it will also be a bargain that depends on forms of productivity because we cannot stand still in how we develop our public services.
“I am confident that for 2017 we will be able to deliver all the public service commitments that we made in the Budget. The very reason I want to avoid other public service commitments being affected in the coming years is because, if we do have a replacement to the Lansdowne Road Agreement we will know what our future public wage bill will be, which will avoid the resetting of priorities which will take place before this summer.”