I beg to move:—
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Go ndeontar suim ná raghaidh thar £5,346 chun slánuithe na suime is gá chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh lá de Mhárta, 1926, chun tuarastail agus Costaisí Coimisiún na Stát-Sheirbhís (Acht Rialuithe na Stát-Sheirbhíse, 1924). |
That a sum not exceeding £5,346 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1926, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Civil Service Commission (Civil Service Regulation Act, 1924). |
There are certain increases in this Vote due to the extension of the work of the Commission. The increase in staff shown in sub-head (a) is one lower executive and two lower clerical officers. Certain other appointments of a higher executive officer, a staff post, and a typist were made last year. They took effect only towards the end of the year, and provision was included for only part of the salary in the estimates for last year, which means that there is a greater increase in the amount required for salaries this year than would be the case if there had been simply an addition of three members to the staff. The one cleaner that is mentioned is a cleaner employed at 33 St. Stephen's Green, where the Civil Service Commission is situated. The cost is shared with other offices in that building, including the Endowed Schools, the Central Midwives Board, and General Nursing Council, etc. In connection with sub-head (b), the provision is approximately the same as last year, and it is, of course, based on the experience of last year. There is the question of the fees for examiners and superintendents. In certain cases papers are set, without any special fees being paid, by inspectors in the Department of Education. In other cases fees are paid. For instance, in the recent examination for Junior Administrative Officers, the fee paid for setting a paper was £5. In the last Customs and Excise Officers examination there was a fee of £5 paid for the setting of a paper. For the Junior Executive Officers examination, held last March, a fee of £3 was paid.
The question has arisen from time to time as to the fees charged candidates at examinations. For a county surveyor's examination the fee was £3 3s.; for the junior administrative examination in March and the examination of last year for assistant inspectors of taxes the fee was £3; for officers of Customs and Excise examination— salary £120 to £250 plus bonus—the fee charged was £2. In the case of junior executive officers, where the salary is £90 to £350 plus bonus, the fee for sitting at the examination was £1 10s. In the case of clerical officers, £70 to £200 plus bonus, there is a fee of £1. That goes down to the case of clerical officers' examination for ex-service men, where there is a fee of 5s. A shorthand typists' and typists' examination was held, for which the salary is 24s. to 38s. per week, and there was a very small fee—2s. 6d. in one case.
It might be asked why the cost of printing is borne under sub-head (c) of this Vote and not borne, as in the case of other offices, by the Stationery Office. The reason is that special arrangements have to be made for the printing of examination papers, to prevent leakage of information as to their contents.
The Civil Service Commission held, during the year 1924-25, the following examinations for the Civil Service generally: 25 examinations for the police and the courts, for the police largely; 2 examinations for local authorities. The total number of examinations held to date for the Civil Service generally has been 37. The number of competitors was 4,018. The number of successful or qualified—of course in certain cases the number who qualified was perhaps treble the number of places—was 1,140. They held eight examinations for the Department of Justice. Those were really police examinations. There were 1,107 competitors, and 622 qualified. They held three examinations for the Local Government Department. There were 34 competitors, and 21 were successful.
In addition to examinations, the Civil Service Commission arranges for appointments through the medium of selection boards. There have been set up for Civil Service appointments 54 selection boards, of which 43 have so far completed their work. The number of applicants was 2,278. The number of applicants who were interviewed after a certain number had been weeded out, on examination of their papers, was 453, and the number of appointments made was 76. That is, for 76 appointments, on which selection boards were held, there were 2,278 applicants. There is a certain number of examinations in view in the coming year, and the work of the Commission will certainly be no less than it has been in the past.
With regard to the question of Irish for the examinations, out of 48 examinations there were 11 in which Irish, though not compulsory, was the major subject, with the result that the candidate who did not take it had little chance of success in the competition. There were 10 out of 48 in which Irish was compulsory for all candidates. In most of the others Irish was a minor subject and only served to enable the candidate to qualify, or to secure a higher place.
With regard to the question of Army candidates, two examinations were confined to Army candidates, a Customs and Excise examination in 1923 and a Clerical Officers' examination in 1924. In the case of two other examinations, half of the vacancies were reserved for Army candidates. These were Customs and Excise examinations in March and October, 1924. In a Junior Accounts Clerks' examination in March of the present year entrance was limited to Army candidates and to certain existing civil servants. In addition to these there were four examinations held in which candidates got special privilege by way of service marks.
The work of issuing actual Civil Service certificates caused delay for a considerable time, because a staff had not been procured and the organisation of the office was just being set up. That has now been gone ahead with, and a very considerable number of certificates have actually been made out and issued, and others are in process of being issued. I think in a very short time the work of the Commission in that respect will be up-to-date.
