Tom Parlon (Laois-Offaly, Progressive Democrats)

I move amendment No. 4:

In page 9, lines 35 and 36, to delete "exercisable by the Government" and substitute "of the Government under subsection (1)".

Amendment No. 4 is a technical amendment put forward by the Office of the Attorney General. Section 7 of the Bill amends the ten-year provisions contained in section 5 of the 1956 Act. The amendment to section 5(3) currently outlined in the Bill provides that the Government may delegate the powers and functions under section 5 to dismiss a civil servant to an appropriate authority other than a Minister. The Office of the Attorney General has advised the Department that to copperfasten the legal authority of an appropriate authority to exercise the powers to dismiss a civil servant under new section 5(3), it should refer back to section 5(1) which provides that every established civil servant shall hold office at the will and pleasure of the Government. Amendment No. 4 makes it clear that the delegation of powers relates specifically to the power to dismiss an established civil servant.

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