Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

As the Deputy knows, there was already a wider incentivised scheme for early retirement which was taken up by some. However, it was clearly not as successful as the scheme that is now being suggested. The latter scheme is arising at a time when the Government is seeking to protect front line services to the greatest possible extent. Therefore we have an obligation to reduce the cost of delivering those services. We are bringing forward the voluntary early retirement and redundancy scheme for that purpose for administrative and management grades and, where replacements are not required, for support staff as well. It has been long mooted that there would be a scheme in place and available and there had been an earlier one. We wish to proceed on the basis that the Government is providing moneys for this particular scheme during the course of 2010 to effect savings from 2011 on, as has been outlined. It is a voluntary scheme and it is for people to consider in their own time in the coming few weeks. I understand there were 900 expressions of interest overnight.

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