Maurice Cummins (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I remind the Senator that as part of the major reform of further education and the training sector, 33 vocational education committees are being merged into 16 educational training boards. As part of this reform it has been necessary to undertake a redeployment scheme for permanent CEOs of each of the VECs.

Obviously, with 16 new ETBs, there are only 16 CEO positions. However, there are 19 permanent CEOs in the existing VECs. Under a redeployment scheme agreed with SIPTU, the filling of the new CEO positions was decided on the basis of seniority. This left three CEOs to be redeployed, including the current CEO of Dún Laoghaire VEC. She is to be appointed as policy specialist on further education and training at the Department of Education and Skills. The person in question was treated no differently than any of the other CEOs who were redeployed under the agreement. That clarifies the position. All of the CEOs involved will report to assistant secretaries in the Department of Education and Skills, not the Minister directly. There was no political involvement in the redeployment of the person mentioned or the other two CEOs covered by the redeployment scheme. I hope this adequately answers the Senator's question.