Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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118. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if his Department and an agency within his Department followed proper procedures in relation to an issue (details supplied); the communications he, his Department or any agency of his Department has had with any other Department on this issue; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41989/15]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Teagasc operates as a separate non-commercial state agency and the arrangements for internal appointments is an operational matter, subject to adherence to all general directives concerning appointments or conditions of employment issued by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. Teagasc has agreed and documented grievance procedures which include the right to appeal by any staff member who feels they have not been dealt with fairly. I am advised that the person in question disputed his unsuccessful application for a Post of Responsibility in Teagasc Mayo in 2007. His appeals were processed through all of the internal Teagasc appeals procedures as well as external independent hearings in both the Labour Relations Commission and the Labour Court. I understand that through all of these processes, no basis was found to overturn the original decision of the interview board.

This issue has also been the subject of considerable correspondence between that individual and my Department over a prolonged period. The Department has been consistent in informing him that it has no role in resolving issues pertaining to promotion competitions in Teagasc. He has also been advised that any candidate who is unhappy with the outcome of a competition can seek legal advice, and pursue whichever civil remedies that may be available, if they consider agreed procedures have been breached.

At the request of the Taoiseach’s office, officials from my Department met with the individual concerned in September 2014 to hear his complaints regarding what he perceives to have been an unfair and improper selection process. My Department conducted a detailed, impartial examination of a dossier presented at that meeting to determine whether it included any new evidence, which would warrant an investigation into events which at that point characterised as fraud. The papers related to the circumstances surrounding the selection process for posts of responsibility in Teagasc in 2007 and the subsequent grievance procedure hearing.

I am advised that having assessed the information, it was considered that the issues raised appear to be firmly in the sphere of industrial relations, that the normal employment appeals avenues had been employed, and that the matter did not warrant investigation by my Department. Accordingly, my Department is not in a position to take the matter further. The individual concerned is of course free to consider such other avenues of redress as may be available to him through the Courts.