Olivia Mitchell (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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Question 187: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the number of officials at principal officer level or higher, in both absolute terms and as a percentage of total staff, who are expected to be working in her Department following full implementation of the incentivised early retirement scheme. [36860/09]

Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)
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My Department currently has 48 officers serving at Principal Officer or higher. This is 4.4% of current serving staff numbers of 1093. To date my Department has received 45 applications under the Incentivised Scheme of Early Retirement. Due to the small number of applications at the higher level I am not prepared to give a breakdown of grades, as it may be possible to identify individual officers or at least cause unhelpful speculation as to the identity of applicants before applicants themselves are ready to announce their retirement.

The Deputy should note that in addition, my Department continues to experience retirements on age grounds (60-65), ill health and on a Cost Neutral basis. Given the current moratorium on the filling of such vacancies, it is not possible to anticipate the number of officials at Principal Officer level and above who are expected to be working in my Department following the full implementation of the Incentivised Early Retirement Scheme.