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

The Minister might clarify what he said specifically and try to relate it to my question which essentially is about rehiring former public servants either on a contract or an agency basis.

I accept the generality that people who retire do not come back into normal employment barring particular exceptions. We have had that in the OPW. We are now seeing the scandal of people who have retired from local authorities being taken on by Irish Water with their gratuities, pensions and lump sums moved into Irish Water to get a bonus on top of that. I know the Minister will tell me he cannot do anything about that, but somewhere along the line the Government needs to govern the country.

I have previously asked the Minister about agency staff. He will say that when an agency is involved he cannot control whom they bring in. The Minister should take legal advice about introducing regulations to oblige the agencies to give the PPS numbers to the HSE - or wherever they are working. That would allow us to establish the number of former employees back working in the same employment along with their former colleagues, but now employed through an agency. The Minister needs to deal with that issue, which he has so far avoided.

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