Pat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael)
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Question 122: To ask the Minister for Finance if he will indicate the projected increase in public service employment in 2007; and the strategy for the growth in public service numbers underlying budgetary planning for 2008 and 2009. [10192/07]

Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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The Government has over the last number of years, followed a policy under which growth in public service employment has slowed overall. The Government will continue to control and regulate numbers employed in the public service within agreed ceilings. The number employed is kept under constant review given the importance of striking an appropriate balance between the need, on the one hand, to provide resources to improve front-line services and cater for demographic pressures and the need, on the other, to control and regulate overall numbers in the context of providing value for money for the public expenditure involved.

This strategy will govern decisions about employment in public services over the period in question. It is a matter for each Minister and Department to manage their employment levels within this strategy. The table shows the latest figures available for the number of staff serving in the public sector; these are whole-time equivalents at end-December 2006.