Written answers
Tuesday, 17 July 2012
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Departmental Staff
8:00 pm
Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal North East, Sinn Fein)
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Question 78: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the number of retired public servants who have been awarded temporary or term-time posts in the public sector over recent years. [36042/12]
Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
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Details are set out in the following table of retired officials of my Department who were temporarily re-engaged or who were already contracted to the Department during 2010 and since:
| GRADE | POSITION HELD | DURATION |
| 2010 | ||
| 1 Assistant Secretary | Passport Appeals Officer | 3-year contract from 1 January 2009 to deal with appeals as and when they arise |
| 1 Assistant Secretary | To assist in the preparation of files for the National Archives | Contract for a maximum of 10 weeks spread over the twelve months of 2010 |
| 2011/ 2012 TO DATE | ||
| 1 Assistant Secretary | Head of Task Force in connection with Ireland's Chairmanship of the OSCE, 2012 | Contract from 7 January 2011 to 31 December 2012 |
| 1 Deputy Secretary | Tánaiste's Special Representative in connection with Ireland's Chairmanship of the OSCE, 2012 | Contract for a maximum of 30 weeks spread over the twelve months of 2012 |
| 1 Assistant Secretary | Passport Appeals Officer | 3-year contract from 20 January 2012 to deal with appeals as and when they arise |
| 1 Assistant Secretary | To assist in the preparation of files for the National Archives | Contract for a maximum of 10 weeks spread over the twelve months in 2011 and 2012 |
| 1 Counsellor | Relating to Ireland's Chairmanship of the OSCE, 2012 | Contract from 4 February 2011 to 22 December 2011 |
| 1 Counsellor | To assist in preparations for the Irish Presidency of the European Union in January – June 2013 | From 1 May 2012 until 30 June 2013 |
The Department also occasionally avails of the services of retired civil servants to sit on promotion competition interview boards or to investigate complaints under the Positive Working Environment policy.
The policy of my Department regarding the re-hiring of retired officials is to do so to the minimum extent possible. However, for certain once-off or short-duration projects, it is more productive and cost-effective to re-hire retired staff who already have the relevant expertise and experience than to go through a time-consuming and relatively expensive recruitment, induction and training process. Where it occurs, retired staff are usually re-hired on a pension abatement basis, which means in effect that they continue to receive their pensions and are paid correspondingly reduced salaries by the Department.
Temporary Clerical Officers (TCOs) are recruited annually for the Passport Service through the Public Appointments Service and FÁS and, in general, rehired public servants are not disbarred from applying under public sector recruitment guidelines. Nevertheless, I can assure the Deputy that it would be very unusual for the Department to employ a retired public servant as a TCO.
There are no State agencies under the aegis of my Department.
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