Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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690. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the number of persons holding Civil Service positions above clerical officer grade in his Department who entered the Civil Service via a route other than through an open competition run by the Public Appointments Service or its predecessors; the grades of each; and the basis for the non-standard recruitment [11850/18]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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Following the easing of the moratorium on recruitment in the Public Sector in late 2014, my Department secured delegated sanction from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform in relation to overall staffing resources in May 2015.This removed the necessity for compliance with Employment Control Framework (ECF) targets, and provided the Department with the flexibility to fill critical resource needs subject to adherence with specified pay ceilings which are fixed and binding. 

My Department works closely with our recruitment partners, the Public Appointments Service (PAS) to recruit suitable staff across the broad range of skills required to meet our business goals. However, due to significant pressure on the PAS system, my Department has assisted PAS in managing pressures and avoiding delays in the recruitment process by carrying out recruitment campaigns where small numbers of staff are sought. The Department is in a position to do this because it obtained a recruitment license from the Commission for Public Service Appointments (CPSA) in July 2009 in accordance with the Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) Act 2004. External recruitment into the Department may therefore be undertaken by the Public Appointments Service on behalf of the Department or alternatively the Department may administer such recruitment itself. In either case, all competitions are administered in accordance with the Codes of Practice set down by the CPSA.

Since securing the Delegated Sanction my Department has recruited the following number of staff through open Competitions: