Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

There are two separate issues, transfers and redeployment. Mutually accepted transfers are a feature of the public service generally but people cannot transfer if there is no job to go to. I was directly involved with the trade unions and psychiatric nurses in respect of St. Senan's Psychiatric Hospital in Enniscorthy, which is now officially closed. There was a full five-year programme of redeployment for the staff to migrate into the community settings in which they will work and agreement on who will work where. There are redeployment strategies in the public service and in the HSE, which deal with the closing down of old institutions that are no longer acceptable and the migration to better, modern community settings such as those provided for psychiatric services in the community. The new transparent model is something we would like to see more of.

As far as practicable, I would like to see the role of the Public Appointments Service enhanced to facilitate transfers. We all get cases where someone would like transfer and, where there is a mutually agreed transfer, it is stopped by an agency because they do not want to lose someone they value in exchange for someone they do not know. If that was done at arm's length by the Public Appointments Service, it would be a good thing to migrate to. I am cognisant of the Senator's point.