Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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140. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he will confirm that vacancies for Higher Executive Officers in Government Departments are now taking applicants from the panel of Higher Executive Officers who are Irish-language speakers; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [47101/22]

Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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141. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he will report on the percentage of Higher Executive Officers appointed to date in 2022 who are Irish-language speakers; if he will also report on the percentage of Higher Executive Officers overall who are Irish speakers; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [47102/22]

Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 140 and 141 together.

As the Deputy will be aware, the Public Appointments Service (PAS) is the primary recruiter for the civil service and establishes panels that individual civil service employers may access as vacancies fall to be filled.

A specific HEO Irish competition - DPER Circular 26/2021 - Interdepartmental Competition for Promotion to Higher Executive Officer (HEO) for positions with fluency in the Irish language in the Civil Service was published on 25 November 2021.

The panel from this competition is set to expire at the end of January 2023 and I am informed by PAS that 11 candidates have been assigned from the panel to requests from Departments. Departments would have specifically requested candidates from this panel as the role had some Irish Language requirement.

A general HEO competition - DPER Circular 08/2022 - Interdepartmental Competition for Promotion to Higher Executive Officer (HEO) in the Civil Service was published on 3 March 2022.

It included a reference to vacancies arising which require staff to provide a full range of services through the Irish language (Functional Bilinguals), which may be filled from this competition. In this regard individuals who have proficiency in the Irish language may indicate their interest on the application form.

The candidates from this competition would only be used for Irish roles if there were no dedicated competition in place or if the roles could not be filled from an Irish Competition. To date 63 candidates have been assigned from this panel and none of these candidates selected the option to be considered for Irish roles.

The Official Languages (Amendment) Act 2021 was enacted on 22 December last. It underpins a key Programme for Government commitment and it is notable that this coincides with Irish having become a full working language of the EU Institutions since January.

The Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, in line with the provisions of this Act, has established a ministerial advisory committee with a view to developing a national plan for the provision of Irish language public services and has committed in its Civil Service Renewal 2030 strategy to implement said plan in full. My Department is represented on this Committee at Principal Officer level and the Public Appointments Service (PAS) is similarly represented at the Committee. The committee is chaired by the Director of Irish at the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.

The functions of this Committee are set out in the Act and include, as mentioned above, the preparation of a National Plan, within two years of its establishment, to increase the provision of services through the medium of Irish as well periodic surveying of the number of Irish speakers employed by the public service.