Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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696. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the reason for the formation of a new panel for technical agricultural officers within his Department while there are persons on an existing panel still available and willing to take up positions if offered; the persons which will be offered a vacant position should it arise within the time it takes to form a new panel; the likelihood of persons currently on or near the top of the panel to be offered a position before the end of 2025; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [65205/25]

Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)
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My Department is committed to ensuring that a skilled and motivated workforce is in place to meet its priority business needs. To achieve this, workforce planning is utilised in identifying and addressing the needs across all our locations.

Recruitment is currently underway in the Department and posts continue to be filled through several mechanisms, including advertisements by Public Jobs and by my Department’s Human Resources Division.

To support my Department's requirements within the Technical Agricultural Officer role, a competition was undertaken by Public Jobs (previously Public Appointment Services) in 2023 at the request of this Department. My Department continues to engage with Public Jobs to offer opportunities to candidates remaining on nationwide panels from this competition which is in place until the end of 2025.

My Department continues to draw from this competition to address vacancies arising in locations where candidates remain available for selection.

Additionally, my Department subsequently undertook a Technical Agricultural Officer competition in 2024 to address any potential anticipated shortfall in candidate availability in a number of locations, mitigating against possible delays to filling posts in locations where candidates were not available from the 2023 panel. My Department will continue to draw from this panel, which is still in place, to fill its vacancies within these locations before offering opportunities to candidates on subsequent competition panels.

A new Technical Agricultural Officer nationwide competition has recently been advertised and is currently being progressed to provide a resulting order of merit which will be available in January 2026.