Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I give the Senator that assurance. The Public Appointments Service has carries out a competition and we now have a range of persons including experienced industrial relations officers, HR practitioners, employment lawyers and civil servants with appropriate skill and experience. This will ensure a diversity among the ranks of adjudicating officers. In addition, a course is being run by the National College of Ireland covering employment equality, industrial relations law, administrative law, human rights law, and instruction on how to conduct inquisitorial hearings and write comprehensive and reasoned decisions. Only those candidates who pass that course will be appointed as adjudication officers. To enshrine what should and should not be taught would be inflexible and create unnecessary rigidities in the system. A great deal of preparatory work went into designing the course and its execution is explicitly concerned with meeting the concerns of Senators and ensuring people who take a case will have it dealt with by officers with a proven competence in this area.