Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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26. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the way in which the existing public sector pay agreements are helping to address staff shortages in front-line public services; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [50835/17]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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Since Q4 2013 Public Service numbers have increased by nearly 30,000. Over 20,000 of those were recruited in the Health and Education sectors. Adjusting for transfers of functions between Departments, both the Department of Health and the Department of Education and Skills have higher staffing levels now than in 2008.

Furthermore there has been a shift from administrative staff to front-line service delivery. For example in Health since 2008 there has been a reduction of approx 5,000 management, admin and general support staff numbers and an equivalent increase in doctors, dentists, health and social care professionals. In education there are over 8,000 more teachers than 2008.

This level of recruitment has largely been possible because of the certainty provided to fiscal planning by the Lansdowne Road Agreement and its successor the Public Service Stability Agreement. By phasing the unwinding of the emergency legislation over a number of years with ring-fenced allocations, sufficient resources were available to make progress on other societal priorities such as providing significant additional front-line staff in our schools and hospitals.

Looking forward the Public Service Stability Agreement 2018-2020provides for the Public Service Pay Commission to engage in a comprehensive examination of certain specialist areas within the public service where recruitment and retention issues may be arising.

Where a difficulty is identified, the Commission will examine the full range of causal factors including matters such as the totality of the current remuneration package, planned future pay adjustments, alleviations from current rates of the PRD as provided for in the PSSA and FEMPI pay unwinding post 2020.