Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The general policy in the Irish public service is that expertise which is not available in-house is bought in or hired in as needed. It is done on the basis that particular expertise is not needed all the time and is only needed occasionally to address particular tasks. It can be compared to the what many of the Deputy's neighbours in his constituency in Dún Laoghaire would do when they want to paint their houses. They would not add to their staff by having a full-time painter, they would hire in the painter. If they want to fix a leak, they would not hire a full- time plumber and put another three or four maintenance people on staff. The Deputy would know that from his experience in the constituency. One would supplement particular expertise by hiring it in occasionally.

The Deputy quoted a number of percentages but percentages do not give the full picture because if one spends €1 and the following year one puts the figure up to €2, that is an increase of 100%. The real amounts of money are the significant aspects of it.

Deputy Pearse Doherty asked some specific questions. On the €350,000 included this year on the economic strategy, I cannot give him the specifics of that because nobody has been hired under that head yet and nothing has been specified. To implement the economic strategy, an estimate has been made that we may need consultancy services up to that value. The provision is made in the Estimate to allow the Department to do it in the course of the year but there is no procurement yet. That is the way Estimates are done. If we did not put it in the Estimate at the start of the year, we would not have the authority to do it without a Supplementary Estimate. That is what has happened there.

On the overseas postings and so on, there is an international assignee project and it is linked to replacing people in the EU Presidency as it rotates. I am very much in favour of this. I remember in the 1970s when we entered the EU we had significant people transferring from Departments entering the European bureaucracy and going right to the top. For example, Ms Catherine Day is the lead civil servant in Europe at present and she is the civil servant who services the policy requirements of President Barroso. We have had other examples of Irish civil servants going to the top but it is quite evident for the last three years that because of the various job opportunities, probably due to the Celtic tiger, that this was discontinued and there are not Irish civil servants, by and large, at significant levels in Europe. It is time that we recommenced a programme to put Irish civil servants in there in our own interests. We have done that now. It is going to be possible in my view to do so, and maybe relatively easy to do so, because the reputation of the Irish civil servants who participated in Brussels during the Presidency was very high. Already we have had inquires from Commission staff and so on to hire specific people whose work record they know from when they were in Brussels. That is what the assignee project placement is about.