Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)
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557. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government further to Parliamentary Question No. 430 of 21 January 2014, the number of external candidates for which sanction has been granted by his Department to Dublin City Council to hold a new recruitment drive for Dublin Fire Brigade in 2014. [4181/14]

Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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My Department operates a delegated sanction from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform for implementation of the moratorium in relation to local authorities. Under section 159 of the Local Government Act 2001, each City and County Manager is responsible for staffing and organisational arrangements in each Council. It is a matter for City and County Managers, in the first instance, to ensure that the moratorium is implemented while the appropriate service levels are maintained.

Where a local authority identifies a critical post that it cannot fill by way of re-organisation or re-assignment it may revert to my Department seeking sanction to fill the post. My Department examines all staffing sanction requests on a case by case basis having due regard to the continued delivery of key services in the context of staffing and budgetary constraints. In considering sanction requests public safety, maintaining key front line services and economic considerations are given precedence.

Dublin City Council recently carried out an assessment of staffing needs for the fire service, and the proposed recruitment procedures were discussed and agreed with trade unions. Some existing fire-fighter vacancies were filled on a cost neutral basis from within the existing staff cohort of the Dublin local authorities.

These discussions included a proposal to hold a recruitment process that will be open to external candidates. The necessary sanctions have been granted by my Department and the recruitment is now a matter for Dublin City Council. Accordingly, information regarding the number of external candidates is not available in my Department.