Robert Dowds (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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158. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if persons currently on permanent panels of relief porters in county councils will be eligible to apply for service officer posts in her Department, which are to be filled by redeployment. [10368/14]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The Public Service Agreements (PSAs) covering the period 2010-16 (the Croke Park and Haddington Road Agreements) provide for agreed redeployment arrangements to apply in the Civil Service and in other parts of the Public Service. Under these Agreements, redeployment generally takes precedence over all other methods of filling a vacancy. It facilitates the movement of staff both within and across sectors as a result of the rationalisation, reconfiguration or restructuring of public service bodies or where activities have assumed lesser priority arising from changing business needs.

Redeployment for the civil service and non-commercial semi state bodies is operated by the Public Appointments Service (PAS), which also arranges for cross-sectoral assignments to be made, where necessary. It is a matter for individual organisations to notify the PAS of the details of staff to be placed on the panel. A setting out the background and full details on the processes involved has been agreed with the staff unions and is available at .

The agreed arrangements for the redeployment staff within the Health, Education, and Local Government sectors are managed directly by those sectors. Where an organisation in another sector has verified to the PAS that its sectoral opportunities have been fully explored and that cross-sectoral redeployment is essential to allow for the placement of its staff, they may notify the PAS of the details of the staff it wishes placed on the Resource Panel. Assignments by the PAS are made on the basis of best fit for the post. The PAS consider a broad range of factors when matching those available on the Resource Panel with an available vacancy and before reassigning a person permanently to another employer/sector, including: pay; ability to discharge the duties of the new post; suitability; basis of assignment; tenure; nature of the post, and policies of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform in relation to mobility and redeployment.