Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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Question 68: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the location and grade of all public servants within his Department or related agencies who while not having reached the minimum retirement age to avail of cost neutral early retirement will benefit from the provisions under the Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest (No. 2) Act 2009; his plans to continue the service provided by each of the retiring staff; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10567/12]

Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
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The minimum retirement age under the Cost Neutral Early Retirement Scheme is 50 years. The Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest (No. 2) Act 2009 came into force on 1 January 2010. Only one officer of my Department aged under 50 years, a part-time Clerical Officer who was serving in the Corporate Services Division, has retired since 1 January 2010 and no further such retirements are anticipated before the end of February 2012. Overall, by the end of February, Departmental permanent staff numbers will have reduced by approximately 180, or almost 12%, since the imposition of the moratorium on recruitment in March 2009.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade performs and provides a very diverse range of people-dependent functions and services: economic promotion; frontline citizen services (passport & consular); policy advice, programme management and representation and protection of the interests of the State and Irish citizens resident abroad through a network of mostly thinly populated offices across the globe. Following a root and branch reappraisal of its operations, the Department is in the process of implementing the most far-reaching reorganisation of its Headquarters structures in more than a generation. A number of our Missions have also been down-sized and, following a fundamental review of the network last year, a total of three offices are being closed this year. Consideration is also being given to e-Government initiatives aimed at further enhancing staffing efficiencies in the Passport Service.

These and other measures will build on the extensive reforms already implemented by the Department over the past three years in an effort to try to ensure that the Department remains in a position to fulfil the many and varied responsibilities conferred on it by the Government.