Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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In the reply to Question No. 231 of 1 December 2009, the Deputy was referred to relevant and easily-accessible published data in the Department's annual reports and the annual estimates for the Department which show the overall staffing numbers, grade breakdown and total payroll costs at year end. This information is provided in these publications specifically in order to meet requests from public representatives and the wider public for such data and is available both on the Department's website www.dast.gov.ie and in the Dáil Library. In order to be helpful to the Deputy, the following table has been compiled and sets out a breakdown of staff numbers by grade at the end of each of the years since the Department was established.

It was not possible in the time provided to give any reasonably accurate or meaningful average wage cost for the grades of staff employed in the Department over the period from mid 2002 to 2008 given the format in which the relevant information is retained. In addition during that period, the Department included the National Museum of Ireland and the National Library of Ireland until they were established as separate legal entities in May 2005, both of which employ a significant number of professional and technical grades. Also due to the decentralisation of the Department to Killarney there was a turnover of staff for the years 2006 to 2009 in excess of 90%. In light of all these factors any effort to compute average wage costs based on data retained would involve a disproportionate amount of staff resources in what would likely give a less than satisfactory result. The relevant pay scales for Civil Service grades and key professional grades are already a matter for public record.