Mr. Pádraig Love:

I am in attendance at the request of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform to represent the Public Appointments Service.

The Public Appointments Service was also established under the Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) Act 2004 as the centralised recruitment, assessment and selection body for the public service. The Public Appointments Service took over the operational aspects of recruitment and selection previously exercised by the office of the Civil Service and Local Appointments Commissioners. In the course of the transition between organisations, PAS retained most of the staff and the organisational knowledge of the earlier bodies.

The relevance of this is that the PAS and, prior to that, the offices of the Civil Service and Local Appointments Commissioners, has been the body primarily responsible for the application of the provision of additional credit for Irish proficiency, as provided for in the Department of Finance Circulars 43/75 and 30/90. PAS has been administering this scheme since its inception in 1975 where it has applied to open recruitment and interdepartmental promotion competitions.

PAS runs assessment processes in a manner that ensures standards of probity, merit, equity and fairness are achieved. The fundamental building block for this is the identification in advance of the range of skills and competencies required for effective performance. It is essential that any candidate who is placed on the final order of merit has demonstrated satisfactorily that he meets the required standard for all of these skills and competencies. In certain instances proficiency in Irish may be set as an essential requirement but in the majority of cases, bonus marks are awarded for demonstrated proficiency.

The scheme for awarding additional marks for demonstrating language proficiency in Irish is intended to introduce an additional distinguishing factor between candidates who clearly meet all of the essential criteria, thereby allowing those with competence in Irish to achieve a higher placing on the panel. For this reason, the credit for Irish proficiency is added to the overall marks after the final order of merit based on the scores awarded for essential skills and competencies is determined by the interview board. Awarding credit at an earlier stage would risk the appointment of a candidate who does not fully meet the essential criteria. This has been the manner of application of this scheme since its inception in 1975. The Public Appointments Service has worked closely with the relevant Departments, the CPSA, the Department of Finance and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, in the intervening years to ensure the scheme is always applied in the manner directed by the Minister.

The PAS recognises the role of the Coimisinéir Teanga and would be happy to work with him in looking at ways to foster the competence in the Irish language through the selection process. The service was slightly surprised that the Coimisinéir Teanga did not engage in any consultation on the matter in the course of his investigation.