Seán Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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Question 48: To ask the Minister for Finance if arrangements for moving staff within the public service across different agencies have been agreed. [11560/10]

Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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The Government Statement on Transforming Public Services recognises the importance of having a highly motivated and well led public service. The statement emphasises the importance of this as the needs of society and the citizen require better collaboration, joint planning and service delivery between the different sectors and organisations in the public service. A more integrated service will be united by its common objectives to achieve the priorities identified by Government. The need is identified to be able to redeploy people in one part of the public service from activities which are no longer priorities, towards new challenges which are often in other areas. This means breaking down the barriers to mobility (organisational, sectoral, professional and geographical) between the different parts of the public service. These are issues which will require negotiation with the public service unions.

In late 2009, discussions took place with the public service unions seeking agreement on arrangements to apply where staff were to be redeployed across the civil and public service. The discussions were part of the agenda of the wider Partnership Talks and had progressed to an advanced stage prior to the breakdown of those talks last December. While the current industrial relations environment has limited the scope to redeploy resources to priority areas my Department will continue to seek progress with the staff side on advancing the redeployment agenda. However, some progress continues to be made in relation to the voluntary movement of staff.