David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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679. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the number of additional public sector staff hired in her Department over and above those who had retired or left the service, that is, new positions only as and from 31 December, 2010, broken down for each of the years 2011 to 2016, to date, in tabular form; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [20145/16]

David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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680. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the number of new public sector workers in her Department hired to replace retiring staff and those who left the Department in each of the years 2013 to 2015; the overall percentage of staff turnover this represents; the cost or savings in payroll and pensions accrued, in tabular form; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [20152/16]

Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 679 and 680 together.

The changes to the overall staffing numbers shown in the following table reflect a range of entrance/exit mechanisms – retirements, resignations, transfers in and out on promotion, recruitment of new staff and also include changes due to the transfer of functions both in and out of my Department with the associated staff performing those functions. These include the transfer of some Departmental functions in 2010 and 2011 to the Departments of Social Protection (36.23 staff) and Department of Education and Skills (30.8 staff), the transition into the Department of the Equality Tribunal from the Department of Justice and Equality in 2013 (24.9 staff), the integration of the state Agency Forfas into the Department in 2014 (54 staff). In addition, a Government Decision of October 2014 transferred responsibility for implementation of the Construction Contracts Act 2013 from the Department of Public Expenditure & Reform to my Department and we also have responsibility for the Low Pay Commission with the direct staffing for both of these Units contributing to the figures shown in the table.

*FTE = Full-time equivalent posts (e.g. 2 staff employed on a 50% basis = 1 full-time post)

**Figure is artificially low as new Ministerial personal staff have yet to be formally added pending finalisation of contractual approval arrangements

*** Gross Pay figures, i.e. inclusive of allowances, PRSI and pensions elements.

The Deputy’s Questions cover, in the main, the period of the Moratorium on recruitment where the principal focus was managing the business delivery by the Department during a period of staff reductions – as was the case across the Civil and Public Service. As the Deputy will be aware, the Moratorium was lifted in Budget 2015 and succeeded by a Staffing Resource Management Framework. Simultaneously, my Department had secured sanction from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (DPER) to fill key posts within the terms of the Employment Control Framework (ECF) which guided the operation of the Moratorium.

Since the lifting of the Moratorium and the move to pay-budget limits, my Department has filled a modest number of vacancies and, in addition, we have grown the number of graduates recruited at Administrative Officer level, recruited a number of Forensic Accountants for the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement, appointed an additional Division (Deputy Chairman and two Members) plus an additional Deputy Chairman to the Labour Court as part of the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) reforms which, among other things, will see the wind-up of the Employment Appeals Tribunal (EAT) once that body has disposed of its legacy caseload. My Department has also recruited a number of Temporary Clerical Officers (TCOs) for a finite period associated with Companies Act conversion project and to assist with a spike in demand in Employment Permits.

The statistics in this regard to end-June 2016 are as follows: