Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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296. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the total number of additional staff to be taken on in her Department and in all individual State agencies and bodies under her aegis in 2017; the total cost of hiring additional staff in her Department and in each individual State agency and body; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [31282/16]

Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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My Department and our Agencies keep our staffing requirements under review both on an ongoing basis and as part of workforce planning. In addition, any plan to recruit additional staff in 2017 for my Department or any of the Agencies that operate under its aegis, is dependent on the level of funding available. In this regard, the distribution of funding for next year across the 39 subheads of my Department’s Vote will be finalised during the 2017 Revised Estimates Volume (REV) process in the weeks ahead and the individual pay budgets that will be available to the Department itself and to each Agency will be concluded in that context. As per the 2017 Expenditure Report published on 11 October 2016, the Current Expenditure ceiling envisaged for next year is €304 million, up from €297.4 million in 2016. “Current” funding covers Pay, Pensions and Non-Pay across the Department, its Offices and Agencies and the Pay ceiling envisaged at this stage for 2017 amounts to €160.7 million compared to €155.06 million in 2016.

The 2017 REV process will be undertaken in conjunction with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and is expected to be concluded during November. My Department is not, therefore, in a position to provide an estimate of additional staffing numbers and their respective costs at this point.