Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for his question. In my role as Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, I have overarching responsibility for recruitment to the Civil Service. All such recruitment is governed by the Public Service (Management and Recruitment) Act 2004. Under the Act, the method of appointment to a permanent Civil Service post is as a result of being successful in a competition run by the Public Appointments Service or by another licence-holder such as the head of a Department or office. Selection processes are open to all eligible applicants who meet minimum entry criteria.

In the main, vacancies in the Civil Service are filled on a permanent basis. However, temporary vacancies arise from time to time to cover such absences as maternity leave or shorter working year and where a permanent vacancy will not exist and a job needs to be done for a finite period of time. Temporary clerical officer positions in the Civil Service are filled by an annual competition conducted by PAS which is usually advertised in February of each year.

It is a matter for human resource units in all Departments and agencies to have procedures in place for dealing with the recruitment and employment of fixed-term employees and the management of their contracts. My Department issues guidelines, entitled Best Practice for the Recruitment and Management of Fixed-term Employees in the Irish Civil Service, which are revised from time to time. The most recent version issued in April 2014 and took account of changes arising as a result of the single pension scheme and the Haddington Road agreement. The guidelines can be found on my Department's website.

PeoplePoint, the Civil Service human resources and pensions shared service centre, became operational in March 2013 and brings together shared HR and pension processes and systems. There are now over 24,000 employees availing of PeoplePoint services across 20 Departments and offices. The use of contract staff for these posts was necessary to ensure that business needs were met and as a temporary response to the demands of this new service. Plans are progressing to replace those temporary clerical officers with permanent staff. In June of this year PAS advertised a recruitment competition to fill permanent clerical officer positions in the Civil Service and public service. In excess of 28,000 applications were received and the first successful applicants are now being offered appointments in line with demand to fill vacancies across the Civil Service and the public service. Decisions on the filling of posts, permanent or otherwise, in other public service bodies are a matter for the employing bodies in the context of their business needs.

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