Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Each Department has what we call an ECF or employment control framework. They can deploy or make an application to my Department for sanction for how that overall framework meets the demands as they perceive them at service delivery level. Therefore, local authorities would make representations to the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, which would look at how the ECF is to be managed. We obviously cannot grant additional staff for every request. That is not possible because we have to live within our financial constraints, but I am certainly preaching for as much flexibility as we can. For example, people may want to suppress a very expensive post and have more than one person employed for the same resource. If that is determined as being a more efficient way of delivering services, I have no difficulty with a pure numbers policy in that regard.

I have eased off on the strictness of the numbers policy to achieve that objective with more flexibility and better judgment, management and, I hope, outcomes at delivery.

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