Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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Question 124: To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform in which areas he will focus his plans for the partial lifting of the public service recruitment embargo announced in his budget 2012 contribution to Dáil Éireann in 2012; the number of posts he intends to sanction; if he will give specific details on the nature of the posts involved; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3226/12]

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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The Government is committed to reducing Public Service numbers to 282,500 by 2015. Given the importance of meeting this challenging numbers target, any recruitment will be limited and targeted towards areas of most need.

Public Service Organisations must fully use all options for discharging work through reorganisation and redeployment of staff. Only after this will the issue of recruitment for current or emerging business needs arise. Each Sector in the Public Service has been establishing its own Strategic Workforce Planning Group to ensure that sectoral employers are developing plans to deal with the operational and strategic consequences arising from staffing reductions. The sectoral groups are feeding into a central Strategic Workforce Planning Forum under the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. Factors such as emerging demographic gaps in management grades will also be considered, for example with a competition for Administrative Officers to be held in the Civil Service.