Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It would be extremely helpful to get a sense of where we are at this point in time. As parliamentarians, we can table questions to every Department and agency and ask them how many secondments they have but I expect it would be better if that was collated by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and presented to the committee rather than us doing it individually, which we can do and I might do that. It is important to get a sense of where we are at and, in particular, whether there are long-term secondments that should no longer be secondments, whereby people probably have been in those roles for so long that those positions should be permanent. With permanency comes particular conditions. Has Mr. Moloney found that to be the case in the Civil Service and in the public sector or has he got an insight into any of this?