Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Civil Service is committed to protecting dignity and respect across all organisations.  The current policy for dealing with complaints of bullying or harassment is, as the Deputy has said, Dignity at Work, which was revised and published in 2015. The policy aims to promote respect, dignity, safety and equality in the workplace.  My Department developed the policy in conjunction with Civil Service management and the staff panel of unions. It is a matter that I and my Department take very seriously, and we go to great efforts to ensure that the policy is implemented and understood by both employees and management across the breadth of our Civil Service.

This policy provides a clear process for dealing with complaints about bullying and harassment in Civil Service organisations.  The policy also provides for the investigation of complaints. To ensure access to impartial and professional investigations of any allegations of bullying or harassment, my Department put in place an external workplace investigation services framework.  It provides a framework of companies that can be requested to investigate cases of bullying and harassment, workplace difficulties and disciplinary matters.

Under the auspices of my Department the Civil Service Employee Assistance Service is available to all civil servants. Although my Department does not currently hold figures for total numbers of bullying and sexual harassment complaints, the following data are available centrally. The numbers of investigations requested by Civil Service organisations under the external workplace investigation services framework in 2015, 2016 and 2017 were 15, 18 and 27, respectively.The numbers of mediations in the Civil Service carried out by the civil and public service mediation service in 2015, 2016 and 2017 were 37, 36 and 29, respectively.

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