Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats)
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77. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation further to reply to Parliamentary Question No. 104 of 26 November 2015 wherein he states that he received only one request from the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement for additional staff, why he did not report on the request for seven additional staff which was made in 2014, the reason for the delay in approving these critical staff given that recruitment has only started this month; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44426/15]

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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In my reply to Question 104 of 26 November 2015 information was included regarding the request for seven additional staff, namely six Professional Accountants as well as an additional Higher Executive Officer with IT expertise to the ODCE. While the Director of Corporate Enforcement is statutorily independent in the exercise of his or her functions, staffing of the ODCE, as with any business unit of my Department is made in line with Government policy. In recent years that policy was governed by the recruitment Moratorium aimed at reducing staff numbers in the Civil and Public Service as part of reducing the Exchequer pay bill. During the lifetime of the Moratorium, sanction of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform was required for any recruitment and the Employment Control Framework (ECF) set maximum numbers in the Department’s employment (including the Agencies under our aegis) year-on-year. In that context, my Department engaged with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform on sanctioning the filling of key vacancies within the ECF/Moratorium framework, including in respect of the ODCE. Nonetheless, the respective managements of each Office, including the ODCE, have had to reconfigure their organisations and adapt to a constrained-resources environment in continuing to deliver their mandates.

There are always competing demands on limited Exchequer resources. Strategic deployment of limited resources in response to Workforce Planning reviews, ongoing prioritising and reprioritising of work and advocating for key or mission-critical posts to be filled to enable my Department meet its current mission were, and remain the key tools at my Department’s disposal regarding staffing resources. However, the level of resources available to my Department and/or any Office or Agency is only one element of its capacity to deliver. How those resources are managed, deployed and developed is as important as the level of resources available.

The request for the seven additional posts for the ODCE was first registered in my Department’s HR Unit in late 2013 as identified in my Reply to the earlier Question from Deputy Shortall. Sanction was received in late 2014 to allow the filling of certain mission-critical posts across my Department, including the seven posts for the ODCE on foot of my Department’s efforts to meet its ECF obligations.

In the context of the ODCE staffing requirements being a subset of my Department’s overall Workforce Planning considerations and the Department securing its delegated sanction on staffing matters as of June 2015, my Department has been working diligently to fill mission-critical vacancies, including the 7 posts for the ODCE. In that regard my Department has worked with the ODCE and subsequently with the Public Appointments Service (PAS) to identify the requirements of the respective ODCE posts in order for PAS to initiate the appropriate open recruitment competition which culminated in the public advertisement placed recently in the media and on publicjobs.ie. As the deadline for applications to fill the Professional Accountants/Investigator posts is 17 December, we will soon thereafter be able to move to the selection and appointment process such that the additional staff would be in post early in 2016.