Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 18 November 2021

Public Accounts Committee

2020 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 32 - Enterprise, Trade and Employment
Chapter 6 - Covid-19 Restart Grant Schemes

9:30 am

Dr. Orlaigh Quinn:

It is a general problem in some of our agencies that we are finding it difficult to recruit staff with specialist skills. In technical areas such as the IT side and the cyber side the pay rates in the private sector are difficult for us to match. We have had a significant number of different appointment processes. There is one ongoing at the moment with the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement for specialist skills. There has been an increase. They have changed not just the legislation - as members are aware, that is going through - but even prior to that, we changed the roles within the office. It is far more technical now with specialist skills than was the case previously. At the end of 2020, there were 43 staff engaged in the ODCE, including nine members of An Garda Síochána. The figure for the previous year was 41. We are working on it.