John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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517. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if staff in the cattle movement and monitoring system of his Department complained of intimidation, harassment and bullying (details supplied); if professional help was sought by and if he granted it to the complainants; if staff of the cattle movement and monitoring system were precluded from investigative work at export lariages, marts, local authority abattoirs and factories despite what is clearly set out in Circular ER 35-2002; if the staff reporting to a manager was reduced from 21 in 2002 to two in recent times; the current make-up of the new unit; and the number of staff who have joined it from the special investigation unit. [15751/16]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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Following the introduction of a new identification system for bovines , which gave rise to significant discrepancies in the early stages, the Department set up a Cattle Movement and Monitoring System (CMMS) Unit in 2002. This initiative was to support the work of the Department’s local District Veterinary Offices in dealing with this increased level of work. Staffing of the CMMS unit at the outset consisted of four teams of 3 Supervisory Agricultural Officers in 4 different locations with 2 District Superintendents having a supervisory role - a total of 14 staff. While primarily staff at DVOs dealt with identification and tracing matters (among other duties), the CMMS units handled specific and targeted enquiries generally, in particular on repeat offenders and on cases that involved more than one DVO area. The focus of the group was exclusively on cattle identification and tracing matters wherever such was required and necessary - this could have arisen on farm or at other locations.

For operational purposes, the staff assigned to the CMMS Unit were under the supervision of an Area Superintendent of the then Special Investigation Unit (SIU). The CMMS unit staff were not part of the SIU which was a separate Unit.

In 2009 a review of the Local Office Structure within my Department was carried out in order to maximise efficiency. This review led to several significant changes at operational level. As the volume of discrepancies had decreased significantly and there was, following the local office review, sufficient capacity among local office staff to carry out all such work, it was decided to stand down the CMMS Unit and deploy the staff to other areas of my Department where vacancies existed. As a result, the CMMS Unit was disbanded in 2011/2012.

In Sept 2010, my Department met with the staff side’s representatives to discuss the redeployment of the staff that had been assigned to the CMMS unit. At this time there were eleven technical staff remaining in the Unit. Following the announcement of the proposed transfers all those eleven staff in the CMMS Unit, lodged similar individual complaints regarding work issues against line management under the Civil Service Grievance Procedure.

Mediation efforts were made on 2 occasions, in July 2012 and again in October 2014. In the former case, the mediator withdrew from the process as he was of the view that the issues raised were not relevant to the grievance procedure. In the latter case, the mediator made an offer, to bring closure to the issue and allow the parties to move forward. That offer was not accepted.

My Department, as is common with all other Departments, makes available the confidential services of the Employee Assistance Officers to all civil service staff wishing to avail of those services.

My Department is constantly assessing its investigative capabilities as it is crucial that my Department has the capability to undertake detailed investigations in order to ensure the integrity of the food chain, protection of public health, animal health and welfare, and plant health. A new Investigation Division (ID) was set up in 2014. This Division is staffed with members with mixed skills, competencies, experience and backgrounds reflecting the range of work that will be carried out by the Division and where staff work in multi-disciplinary teams, rather than in a hierarchical structure. The current complement of staff in the Investigations Division is 10 – this includes 6 former staff of the Special Investigations Unit – two further staff members are to be assigned shortly.

Animal level discrepancies outstanding greater than 1 month