Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 13:

In page 7, between lines 11 and 12, to insert the following:“(5) The Minister shall, within 6 months of the enactment of this Act, bring forward a report on the feasibility of the Public Appointments Commission establishing a process whereby employees who wish to voluntarily transfer to a new role within the public service may be matched up with another employee who is willing to transfer in the opposite direction.”.

I might have moved this amendment, or one very like it, on Committee Stage. It is to establish a situation or some mechanism within the public service whereby people who want to transfer from one organisation to another location could register their wish to transfer, for example, from Portlaoise to Dublin or vice versa. If they are in similar grades it could be a swap. Was there a central application facility in the Department of Finance when there was a great deal of staff movement under the decentralisation programme? There could be some type of arrangement like that.

With the shared services in a local authority one might find a local authority that requires extra staff because it has a major project under shared services and people might like to get back to a particular region or whatever. It is up to each person to chase the organisations individually. It would be useful if there was a networked noticeboard available on which people could put their names on a swap or transfer list. There might be three people: A wanting to move to B, B to C and C back to A. It would help staff movement. I do not think there would be a major cost involved. Will the Minister give me his thoughts on that?

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