Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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163. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the number of full-time staff vacancies, by job title, in the Workplace Relations Commission and the Labour Court; the estimated full-year cost of filling each of these vacancies, in tabular form; and when these vacancies will be filled. [58029/22]

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) and the Labour Court are independent, statutory bodies which provide the State’s dispute resolution mechanisms for industrial relations and employment rights disputes. Both the WRC and the Labour Court are staffed by civil servants of my Department.

There are currently 24 full-time staff vacancies in the WRC. The full year pay cost of filling those vacancies would be approximately €1,389,403.40. This is based on the calculation of staff costs as set out in the Public Spending Code. The code sets out that the pay cost should be based on the midpoint of the salary scale and include employer’s salary related PRSI and imputed pension costs. The Code also provides that overheads e.g., ICT equipment, legal costs, travel, and subsistence should be estimated at an additional 25% of the midpoint of the salary scale, calculated in this instance at approximately €276,803.29. Therefore, the total estimate full year cost of filling all 24 vacancies applying these imputed costs and projections, is approximately €1,666,230.69. It is anticipated that the vacancies will be filled in the course of the remainder of 2022 and throughout 2023 as a result of PAS and regional recruitment campaigns.

There are currently no vacancies in the Labour Court.

Table 1 sets out the current vacancies at the WRC by grade.

Table 2 sets out the full year cost of filling those vacancies applying the Public Spending Code calculation model.

My Department fully supports and continues to work closely with the WRC and the Labour Court monitoring their staffing and budgetary requirements. This includes anticipating future resource requirements to ensure that both organisations are supported and adequately resourced to carry out their important work.

Table 1:

Table 2:

**IRO allowance of €11,693.71 applied after initial calculation of pay costs

There are no vacancies currently at the Labour Court.