Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the number of staff members of his Department that have been awarded internal promotions and or additional acting up or temporary allowances to perform more senior roles since 27 March 2009; the details of the grades involved; the pre-promotion temporary acting and post promotion temporary acting pay scales; the total increase in salary payments to each staff member involved; the duration of assignments; the area to which each person was assigned; the business reasons supporting any such decision; the details of sanction received from the Department of Finance and or Public Expenditure and Reform; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [47165/12]

Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
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Promotions in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade have been relatively few since the introduction of the moratorium by the Government with effect from 27 March 2009, with any exceptions requiring the specific approval of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform. In the period since then the Department’s core staffing decreased by approximately 190, or about 12%. Predictably, senior levels were most severely affected and, in the circumstances, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform recently approved the filling of some of the critical gaps that had arisen at these levels, particularly since the end of the pensions “grace period” on 29 February 2012. Details of promotions in the Department since 27 March 2009 are set out in the following table. In each case the rules of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform governing pay-on-promotion were followed in determining the new scale point and increment date.

Internal promotions since 27 March 2009

Details of the temporary acting-up allowances awarded in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in the period since 27 March 2009, again with the sanction and under the pay-on-promotion rules of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, are set out in the following table.

Acting-up allowances awarded since 27 March 2009

A small number of temporary acting-up allowances are also awarded annually to Clerical Officers in the Passport Service who undertake supervisory duties when Temporary Clerical Officers are recruited for the peak application period or during absences of production facility supervisors.