Written answers
Tuesday, 2 October 2012
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Departmental Staff Rehiring
Luke Flanagan (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent)
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To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade if he will list all the current positions, where the appointment was made by his Department held by retired senior civil servants; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42667/12]
Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
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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. A small number of temporary posts in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade are currently filled by retired senior civil servants as follows:
GRADE | POSITION HELD | DURATION |
|---|---|---|
| 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 (based on per diem payments) |
| 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 | 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. In addition, a retired Assistant Secretary was appointed to the independent Irish Aid Expert Advisory Group in July 2010 for a term of three years, for which a fee of €2,000 is payable annually. There are no State agencies under the aegis of my Department.
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