Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

If consideration is being given to relaxing the embargo on public service recruitment, is a workforce planning framework in place against which one could match numbers? Until now, most of the discussion on reform has been focused on cutting costs. A real reform programme must be focused on delivering services differently and redressing the imbalance in public service numbers to close gaps in services. Why should one part of the country have much higher class sizes or a much smaller budget for youth services than other parts of the country? Is each Department engaged in workforce planning and is this matched against the relaxation of the public service recruitment embargo? Alternatively, are people making a strong argument for relaxing the embargo and, if so, what is the nature of these arguments?

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