Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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868. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she will outline all of the secondment arrangements within her Department; the conditions related to such secondments; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [19865/22]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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My Department has a number of long standing arrangements including with the Office of the Attorney General/Chief State Solicitors Office and the Central Statistics Office (CSO) to facilitate the secondment of legal professionals and statisticians to this Department to advise on legal matters and provide robust statistical information, respectively, to help inform policy within the Department. Staff are also seconded in from other organisations in the public service/civil service, as required, to meet specific business requirements.

In addition, this Department facilitates secondments of officials to other organisations, many in the Education sector, as a result of their particular skillsets, to meet specific business needs and/or to facilitate career development opportunities.

Details in relation to staff on secondment to and from the Department are set out in the attached tabular statement.

The costs associated with the secondment of the 19 staff on secondment to my Department are met by my Department. There are 15 employees seconded out from my Department to other organisations. Of these, there is one employee of my Department, paid by the Department, who is seconded to Caranua (Residential Institutions Statutory Fund Board), an aegis body of the Department of Education. This officer is employed as a temporary resource to facilitate the orderly winding down of Caranua. The salary costs for the other 14 staff are covered by the receiving organisations.

Please note that for administrative purposes, Department officials on secondment to outside organisations may continue to be paid through the Department’s payroll arrangements with the National Shared Services Office (NSSO) but the salary costs are then recouped to the Department of Education.

In terms of the conditions attached to secondments, a seconded member of staff continues to be treated as a staff member of their parent organisation for the purposes of internal promotion competitions, pay and progression, incremental credit (subject to satisfactory performance), reckonable service, and will also continue to be a member of their parent organisation’s pension scheme and pay all contributions on the basis of this membership at their substantive grade. 

The table below gives details of the numbers, grades and parent organisations of staff on secondment tothe Department of Education.

The table below gives details of the numbers and grades of staff on secondment fromthe Department of Education to outside organisations and the names of those organisations.

* The former Secretary General of the Department has completed his term of office as Secretary General and is now on secondment to Maynooth University for a term which will expire on his reaching his preserved pension age. This arrangement follows two Government decisions, one in 2011 and one in 2021 which dealt with this matter.