The union representing lower paid civil servants says there is a lot more to reforming the civil service than firing poor performers.

The message comes after the Government announced a three year plan to overhaul the civil service, managing it as a unified entity, rather than 16 separate Departments.

The three year plan will also abolish bonuses and performance-related pay.

General Secretary of the CPSU Eoin Ronayne said the vast majority of civil servants are doing good work and the message that sackings could be on the way is not helpful. Ronayne says it is particularly tough for the workers to take having worked hard under the weight of reduced resources in recent years.

“There is a frustration on the part of ordinary public and civil servants that have been plugging away trying to keep the show on the road with reduced resources, delivering day in day out and then the first comment out of a plan today about reforming and developing the civil service – which needs to happen in every employment, in that sense its welcome of course - I mean it just doesn’t seem to be the way to respond to people who have put their shoulders to the wheel,” Ronayne said.

On Thursday the government unveiled a plan to reform the civil service. The attention grabbing measure within is the plan to make it easier to sack poorly performing workers.

In the first 200 days, a new accountability board will be established chaired by the Taoiseach Enda Kenny, a performance review for secretaries-general will take place and recruitment will begin for the first time since before the economic crisis.

Bonus or performance related pay arrangements are ruled out for the 36,000 staff, as is a recommendation for the appointment of a head of the civil service.