Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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199. To ask the Minister for Finance the efforts being made to provide access to full-time Civil Service employment for the 62 temporary clerical officers working for the Revenue Commissioners in Ennis, County Clare; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3426/15]

Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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200. To ask the Minister for Finance if there will be continuous temporary employment for the 62 temporary clerical staff working for the Revenue Commissioners in Ennis, County Clare; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3427/15]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 199 and 200 together.

I am advised by the Revenue Commissioners that the temporary staff in question were recruited to carry out work associated with the introduction of Local Property Tax (LPT). The task of introducing this new tax, the largest extension of the self-assessment system in the history of the State, posed major administrative challenges. The staffing model for its introduction was built on flexible deployment, which included a mix of experienced existing staff, additional staff on a temporary basis, and an external call centre service to provide an information help line.

Revenue has informed me that this flexible mix of resources was considered the most effective model available and was vital to the successful introduction of the tax in a relatively short period of time. The temporary staff in Ennis were employed on fixed-term contracts which specifically stipulated that their employment would end on a specific date or when the task for which they had been employed was completed. In accordance with their contracts, employment of these temporary staff will cease on 27 March 2015. Revenue is not in a position to offer them permanent employment when their fixed-term contracts expire.

The recruitment and appointment of permanent staff in Revenue is regulated by the Commission for Public Service Appointments. All recruitment for permanent clerical positions in Revenue must be carried in accordance with the recruitment licence granted by the Commission. The licence held by Revenue does not provide for the awarding of permanent contracts to these staff on the basis of their temporary employment. However, they are eligible to apply in the normal way for any open competitions being run by the Public Appointments Service (PAS) or Revenue for the recruitment of permanent staff. 

The Deputy will be aware from a previous representation that in January 2014 Revenue ran a competition which enabled serving temporary Revenue staff, including those in Ennis, to fill a number of permanent posts.   More recently, the Public Appointments Service held an open clerical officer competition which closed in July 2014. Temporary Revenue staff were eligible to apply for this competition. Revenue will recruit from this panel to fill permanent clerical officer positions as they arise.