Results 16,901-16,920 of 29,533 for speaker:Brendan Howlin

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (2 Oct 2013)

Brendan Howlin: We can debate the matter when we come to deal with the relevant legislation.

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (2 Oct 2013)

Brendan Howlin: The matter is not germane to this Bill. We will have an opportunity in the near future to debate the issue under separate legislation. In response to the Deputy's general point, the top level appointments committee or TLAC has been reconstituted. The majority of that committee are independent outsiders, not Secretaries General. The chair is an independent outside appointee. In any...

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (2 Oct 2013)

Brendan Howlin: We will debate that when we see the legislation. It is a second Bill entirely.

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (2 Oct 2013)

Brendan Howlin: There is a pro tem appointment and I understand that there is an acting clerk. Under the existing legislation, the power of the clerk accrues to the acting clerk. In other words, the Clerk Assistant acts up.

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (2 Oct 2013)

Brendan Howlin: I understand that appointment has already been made.

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (2 Oct 2013)

Brendan Howlin: It is important to be clear that this Bill does not provide the power to the Public Appointments Service, PAS, to establish, in any circumstances, a system under which employees may be compulsorily forced to move. That power is not devolved to the PAS. The Bill is designed to facilitate definitive voluntary cross-sectoral moves. It will not and cannot in itself force such reassignments....

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (2 Oct 2013)

Brendan Howlin: Yes, thank you, Chairman.

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (2 Oct 2013)

Brendan Howlin: The Croke Park agreement situation will migrate into the Haddington Road agreement unchanged.

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (2 Oct 2013)

Brendan Howlin: It is expanded, however, because not all sectors were encompassed by the Croke Park agreement. The Croke Park arrangement dealt with health, education and local authorities. Now all sectors will have an appeals system.

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (2 Oct 2013)

Brendan Howlin: In recent years, there has been a substantial increase in pressure on public service organisations to maximise the use of scarce resources and do more with less. Mechanisms are already in place to make heads of organisations accountable in that regard. In that context, it is clearly in the best interests of public sector organisations to ensure their staff are adequately trained for the...

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (2 Oct 2013)

Brendan Howlin: It would be worth going down to see it in Clonskeagh.

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (2 Oct 2013)

Brendan Howlin: They could just be very good.

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (2 Oct 2013)

Brendan Howlin: We want to facilitate mobility as far as possible. There has been extraordinary mobility in recent years under the Croke Park agreement. More than 10,000 staff have moved. Needless to say, however, it can be complicated where there are pressure points and surplus staff. For example, I dealt with one case over the summer where there was pressure on the Garda vetting unit in Tipperary....

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (2 Oct 2013)

Brendan Howlin: That can sometimes be problematic, but we will try to work those out as best we can.

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (2 Oct 2013)

Brendan Howlin: When we are setting up a new agency, if one is doing a shared service, one would apply to the new management of that shared service to say that one is available. The person would then apply to his or her own line manager to be released to it. That happens. There is no formal structure or clearing house.

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (2 Oct 2013)

Brendan Howlin: No.

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (2 Oct 2013)

Brendan Howlin: This Bill facilitates that. Up to now, mobility was not on a statutory basis. Staff were on secondment as opposed to formal transfer. This legislation puts what has happened for the past several years under Croke Park on a statutory basis in order that terms and conditions will be regularised for people who move positions.

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (2 Oct 2013)

Brendan Howlin: Yes, that is what should happen. If the Deputy would like to bring to our attention individual cases where this has not happened, he may do so.

Written Answers — Department of Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Sector Staff Retirements (3 Oct 2013)

Brendan Howlin: Information on the retirement ages of Public Servants is not held centrally. In the case of the Civil Service the numbers of staff retiring at 65 in the last 5 years will be forwarded to the Deputy when it has been collated. Information in respect of other groups of Public Servants should be sought from the respective Ministers.

Written Answers — Department of Public Expenditure and Reform: Departmental Staff Redeployment (3 Oct 2013)

Brendan Howlin: It is a matter for the management of each Government Department to manage its staff resources including the re-allocation of surplus staff through redeployment mechanisms. Since the beginning of 2011 alone the numbers employed in the public service have fallen by more than 15,000. While this level of reduction has posed challenges across many areas, frontline services have been protected...