Mr. Tadhg O'Leary:

It might be helpful to explain the framework that we use for recruiting staff through Irish. The figure of five is about right. We go out to all of our divisional managers and other business owners and ask them to identify posts where they are asking us to fill those posts with functional bilinguals. One of the resources we have is the Public Appointments Service, PAS, panel. As I am sure the committee is aware, PAS has panels at clerical officer and executive officer level but not currently at higher executive officer, HEO, level. In the Department we have a very substantial number of higher executive officers. We have approximately 1,500 HEOs, which is a very large number.

The other source is through the general panels and from speaking to colleagues before this meeting it is very clear that we see numbers of staff arriving in through the general panels who are fluent in Irish. They would not have mentioned that - for whatever reasons - prior to arriving in the job. Sometimes people who are native speakers will turn up. That five will be the number of staff that they will be recruiting who will be proficient in Irish, that we are requesting specifically through the PAS panels. We are only at the second round of those PAS panels that were set up following the public service recruitment moratorium. It has been very difficult to source staff from those panels. I am sure the Deputy is aware of that issue. They have not been very large panels but we are actively sourcing staff through any panels that are available.