Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Is the Minister saying there was a transfer and appointment to the Department of the Taoiseach in respect of which she received no correspondence and in the context of which there was no public appointments process? Is she stating that there was no communication between the Secretary General of the Minister's Department and the Secretary General of the Department of the Taoiseach in the context of effecting this transfer? From my experience as a Minister, there is a public appointments process embedded into Civil Service regulation and into the understanding given to people who become members of Government. However, there are also contractual and transfer issues involved. The Minister is saying that this man came to her and said he was delighted with a new job offer, which is fair enough. Surely, however, that left her and her Department in a bit of a hole. The Department had made its plans. Is the Minister really telling the House that she heard nothing from the Department of the Taoiseach and the civil servants there about this appointment? Is she saying that this was a purely political agreement between her and the Taoiseach to pluck a civil servant from one place and plonk him somewhere else? That is not done and it is totally wrong.

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