Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry South, Independent)
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278. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he will ensure that the Civil Service insist on 30% of new recruits being able to speak and deal in Irish with queries; if he will ensure that a 10% overall complement of persons working in the civil service will be able to deal with matters in Irish; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26004/14]

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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As the Deputy is aware, the Government approved the introduction of a new approach to ensure that there are a sufficient number of civil servants who are able to perform their duties through Irish.  These new arrangements were put in place in the context of replacing the policy of awarding bonus marks for Irish language proficiency in civil service recruitment and promotion competitions which was not meeting the Government's objectives. Under the new approach measures are being introduced to increase the cohort of functional bilinguals in the civil service in order to reflect a more competency-based approach to recruitment and, where appropriate, promotion competitions. In future, in the context of workforce planning frameworks, Departments will be required to identify the posts/areas of work requiring functional bilinguals and to include these in their workforce action plans. Having regard to the implementation of the Gaeltacht Act 2012, Departments will be asked to pay particular attention to posts that are located in, or that are serving, Gaeltacht areas. This process will be central to ensuring that future recruitment and interdepartmental promotion competitions run by PAS make sufficient provision for appointments to posts requiring functional bilinguals. In the case of Departmental recruitment and promotion competitions, an assessment will be made of the requirement for functional bilinguals and, where necessary and appropriate, a sub-panel of functional bilinguals will be put in place.

The new arrangements replace the scheme of bonus marks for Irish, introduced nearly 40 years ago following the abolition of compulsory Irish for entry to the civil service. Under the new arrangements, where a post in a Government Departments is identified as requiring proficiency in Irish, the intention is that it should be filled by a functional bilingual. It had been intended to pilot the new arrangements in the upcoming Executive Officer (EO) recruitment competition. However, as priority is now being given to a Clerical Officer (CO) competition and the EO competition will not take place until later in the year, it has been decided that the new arrangements will be piloted in the CO competition which will be announced in the coming weeks. It is proposed that a sub-panel of Irish language functional bilinguals comprising up to 6% of the overall CO panel size, will be created.

The new model provides for a sub-panel of Irish language functional bilinguals comprising up to 6% of the overall CO panel size and will be revised as necessary in the context of experience and progress in achieving the Government's objectives.