Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Details are set out in the following table of the retired officials of my Department who were re-hired temporarily during the period in question:

2012

Grade	Position Held	Duration
Assistant Secretary	Passport Appeals Officer	Three-year contract from 20 January 2012 to deal with appeals as and when they arise (resigned from the position on  25 April 2014)
Deputy Secretary	Tánaiste’s Special Representative in connection with Ireland’s Chairmanship of the OSCE, 2012	Contract for a maximum of 30 weeks spread over the twelve months of 2012
Assistant Secretary	To assist in the preparation of files for the National Archives	Contract for a maximum of 10 weeks spread over the twelve months of 2012
Counsellor	To assist in preparations for the Irish Presidency of the European Union in January – June 2013	Contract from 1 May 2012 to 30 June 2013
First Secretary	Embassy Canberra (temporarily filling vacant post)	Contract from December 2012 to March 2013

2013

Grade	Position Held	Duration
Assistant Secretary	To assist in the preparation of files for the National Archives	Contract for a maximum of 10 weeks spread over the twelve months of 2013

2014

Grade	Position Held	Duration
Assistant Secretary	To assist in the preparation of files for the National Archives	Contract for a maximum of 10 weeks spread over the twelve months of 2014
Counsellor	Passport Appeals Officer	Three-year contract from 4 April 2014 to deal with appeals as and when they arise
Senior Development Specialist	To assist with a Consular Services project	Contract for an initial 3 month period in 2014

Two retired civil servants, with previous service in other Departments, were given short-term Temporary Clerical Officer contracts in the Passport Office during 2012 and 2013.

From time to time, a number of retired Public Sector officials and retired Civil Servants from other Departments are engaged to assist on interview boards in my Department.

My Department’s Development Cooperation Division also occasionally engages a small number of retired staff for short-duration specialist consultancy projects connected with the activities of Irish Aid.

The policy of my Department regarding the re-engagement of retired officials is to do so to the minimum extent possible. However, for certain once-off or short-duration projects, it is more productive and cost-effective to re-engage retired staff who already have the relevant expertise and experience than to go through a time-consuming and relatively expensive recruitment, induction and training process. Where it occurs, retired staff are usually re-engaged on a pension abatement basis, which means in effect that they continue to receive their pensions and are paid correspondingly reduced salaries by the Department.