Written answers

Tuesday, 3 March 2015

Department of Finance

Public Sector Staff

Photo of Clare DalyClare Daly (Dublin North, United Left)
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187. To ask the Minister for Finance if he will justify the fact that 110 staff in the Revenue Commissioners will be let go on 27 March 2015, despite the fact that they have successfully worked in that area for many months and that they will be replaced from an outside panel, necessitating extra training when there were persons in situ that were capable of doing that job. [8748/15]

Photo of Michael NoonanMichael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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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) and also for the Household Charge Arrears project.

The task of introducing this new tax (LPT), 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 and additional staff employed on a temporary basis.

The responsibility for the collection of Household Charge arrears not paid to local authorities by 1 July 2013 was passed to Revenue.  This is a once off temporary project that will be substantially completed shortly. This project was staffed primarily with temporary staff.

The temporary staff employed for the set up of LPT and the collection of Household Charge arrears 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 positions in Revenue must be carried out 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 staff on the basis of 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 to recruit permanent staff. 

Revenue ran a competition in January 2014 which enabled serving temporary Revenue staff apply 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.

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