Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

It is anticipated that there will be an underspend of €3 million in the Department's budget at the end of the year under this heading. This is because the Department was unable to source staff to fill critical posts that became vacant, primarily due to retirements. It is anticipated that about 170 staff will have retired by the end of this year and due to the moratorium on recruitment there were no panels from which to source staff. However, I am happy to say that following a number of Public Appointments Service competitions earlier this year, staff are now becoming available. We got the go-ahead from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform in April. Filling the posts from the external panels was not easy. As one will appreciate, even last April a lot of graduates were applying for some of the jobs but by the time the panel came to be appointed many of those people had already found work. It is an issue in public service recruitment that the panel process, while it is very fair, it can be very lengthy. Obviously, if people are waiting for a long time and something else comes up, they may well take it. It is an issue generally across public service recruitment.