Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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30. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the number of public sector workers on temporary contracts or other non-permanent contracts of employment in his Department. [29685/14]

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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There are 176 out of 801 staff in my Department on fixed term contracts.  143 of these are Temporary Clerical Officers (TCO's) in PeoplePoint. PeoplePoint, the Civil Service Human Resources and Pensions Shared Service Centre, became operational in March 2013 and brings together shared HR and Pension processes and systems to ensure a more consistent and efficient HR and Pension Service. There are now over 24,000 employees availing of PeoplePoint's services across 20 Government Departments and Offices.  The use of contract staff for these posts was necessary to ensure that business needs were met and as a temporary response to the demands of this new service.  Plans are progressing to replace TCO's with permanent staff.

The Public Appointments Service (PAS) is currently running an open Clerical Officer competition and it is expected that panels will be in place by late September/early October.  Once panels are in place it is intended to assign permanent Clerical Officers to PeoplePoint, ending the need for the current fixed term contract arrangements (143 TCO's).  All contract staff are managed within budget, the employment control framework numbers for each area and in accordance with the Department of Finance Letter of 27 March 2009, Implementation of Savings Measures on Public Service Numbers.