Eamon Scanlon (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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I would like the Minister of State, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, to investigate irregularities regarding e-mails frompublicjobs.ieand the subsequent interview selection process for candidates for temporary summer work. I know of many young people who applied for temporary work in the Department of Social Protection. It affects my constituency more than any because we have a social welfare office in Sligo. Many people, particularly young people, who applied for temporary summer positions and who were called for an aptitude test were called for interview but quite a few were not. Many of those who use Hotmail did not receive a request to come for an interview.

I raise this issue because it has affected many people. Many who were watching what was happening made contact with the relevant authorities and managed to be called for an interview but there were those who were not since they were not as aware as others of what was happening. This is very unfair.

I contacted publicjobs.ielast week on behalf of some of the applicants only to be told they would not be called. I understand circumstances have changed slightly since then. There are still people I know of who have not been called for an interview. It is very unfair that because of a glitch in the system, certain applicants were not notified about an interview. They did not receive the information and some of them have still not received it. It is very unfair. Everybody who did the aptitude test should be given the chance to complete the interview.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. I note his genuine concern for those affected. The Public Appointments Service is the independent centralised recruitment agency for the Civil Service and public service and conducts regular recruitment competitions for the Civil Service. I understand from a parliamentary question asked today that the Deputy is primarily interested in the temporary clerical officer competition.

I understand from a parliamentary question asked today that the Deputy is primarily interested in the temporary clerical officer competition. As he will be aware, the Public Appointments Service recently advertised for a temporary clerical officer competition to fill vacancies which may arise during the year in various Departments and locations nationwide. The current temporary clerical officer competition was advertised on 23 February 2016 and closed for applications on 1 March last. When the campaign was advertised an information booklet was published on publicjobs.ieto provide candidates with all the necessary information about the role and the application and selection process. The information booklet is still available on publicjobs.ie for candidates to reference at any time. Information booklets are issued with all competitions.

The current temporary clerical officer competition attracted more than 11,500 applications. Candidates were required to complete a questionnaire for the first stage of the selection process. On the basis of their performance in the questionnaire, candidates were ranked and an order of merit created for each location. Candidates are invited to interview in order of their ranking from stage 1. The number of candidates invited to interview depends on the likely number of vacancies for the location in question. To date, 2,599 candidates have been invited to interview, of which 916 have been assigned to vacancies. A further 574 candidates have been successful at interview and are awaiting assignment as vacancies arise.

The Public Appointments Service informed candidates in the information booklet that they could expect to receive most communications in regard to the competition to the e-mail address provided on their application. Personal e-mail accounts may have filters which can result in e-mails from publicjobs.ie being blocked or directed to junk or spam e-mail folders. In the information booklet, candidates are advised to add publicjobs.ieto their safe senders' or contacts' lists of their e-mail accounts to avoid not receiving e-mails because a message from publicjobs.iehas been blocked. Candidates are also advised to check their e-mail on a regular basis as e-mail notifications of updates may sometimes be filtered into their junk or spam e-mail folder.

The onus is on each applicant to make himself or herself available on the date or dates specified by the Public Appointments Service if he or she is invited to tests and-or interviews and to ensure he or she is in receipt of all communications from the service. Once an e-mail has been issued and the Public Appointments Service does not receive a notification of a failure to deliver, the service cannot accept responsibility for communication not accessed or received by an applicant. In the context of a campaign which requires a large volume of vacancies to be filled across multiple employing organisations and locations within a short timeframe, it is necessary for the Public Appointments Service to rely on e-mail communication. Once it is satisfied that e-mails have issued, there is no capacity to take further action to ensure the candidate has seen or read the message.