John Perry (Sligo-North Leitrim, Fine Gael)
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Question 109: To ask the Minister for Finance the impact on public service employment of the embargo on recruitment, on numbers and on the public service pay bill in 2010 and 2011; and the number and the pay bill implications of the exceptions which he has allowed. [39155/09]

Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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At the end of March 2009, the Government introduced a moratorium on public service recruitment and promotion, while allowing for certain exemptions in the Education and Health Sectors for the filling of certain key posts. Furthermore, in the April 2009 Supplementary Budget, I announced a range of initiatives which are intended to lead to savings in the public service pay bill - an Incentivised Scheme of Early Retirement in the public service, the Special Civil Service Incentive Career Break Scheme and the Shorter Working Year Scheme which replaces the existing Term Time Scheme. In the April Budget I included a tentative estimate of savings of up to €300 million in a full year (i.e. including both 2010 and 2011) arising from all of these initiatives.

Based on the information returned to my Department, the number of persons in the public service has already decreased by 1,497 between end-March and end-June of this year. Officials from my Department are currently engaged in the process of collating the end-September numbers.

As regards exceptions to the moratorium, the Department of Finance has received written applications for exceptions for the filling of approximately 1,710 specific posts comprehended by the moratorium, of which the filling of 802 posts has been sanctioned. As regards the Civil Service there were applications for the filling of 337 full-time posts and sanction was conveyed in 224 cases. The main areas of exception were the prison service, educational psychologists and social welfare staff.

As regards the broader Public Service, applications were made for the filling of some 1,373 posts and sanction was conveyed in 578 cases. The main areas of exception were in the Education sector (renewal of secondment of teachers to Education Service), the Health sector (mental health nurses) and the Defence Forces (in particular, sanction for once-off acting-up allowances for specific overseas deployment).

In terms of the pay bill implications it is estimated that gross full year salary costs of approximately €31.6 million arise in respect of 601 of the exceptions granted.

Of the remaining posts, the following specific points should be noted:-

·Department of Agriculture, Fisheries & Food: 14 posts have transferred to Teagasc following the closure of Warrenstown Private College, and 1 promotion post in Teagasc was already the subject of an acting up allowance;

·Department of Communications, Energy & Natural Resources: Of 45 posts exempted under the moratorium, 32 are seasonal posts recruited for 2009 only and 13 are funded by non-Exchequer sources;

·Department of Defence: 108 posts have been exempted (recruitment of 42 cadets, 4 promotions and 62 once-off acting-up allowances for specific overseas deployments) and the annual additional cost of these exemptions is calculated on an incremental basis and amounts to some €1.5m. This cost will be met from the Department's existing pay allocation. This figure does not take account of savings resulting from non-filling of existing consequential vacancies in the case of promotions (€306,000) or vacancies arising from natural wastage;

·Department of Justice, Equality & Law Reform: 33 exemptions have been sanctioned for the renewal of contract posts in the Irish Youth Justice Service. These posts were already filled on fixed term contracts and the concerned persons were on the payroll at their particular grade.