asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he will state (a) whether any temporary appointments to the post of Employment Clerk have been made; and, if so (b) if all those who received temporary appointments sat for the examination held on 21st December, 1933; (c) if any candidate who failed to pass the examination received a temporary appointment; (d) how many temporary Employment clerks are still employed, and how long it is estimated their employment will continue; (e) if the candidates next on the list to those appointed were given an opportunity of accepting temporary employment in order of merit, and if not why; and (f) if it is intended to make any further appointments from those who qualified, or if it is intended to hold a further examination to replace the temporary clerks appointed.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Temporary Employment Clerks
No temporary appointments to the post of employment clerk have been made. The post of employment clerk is an established post. There is, however, a temporary situation of clerical assistant in the Employment Branch which the Civil Service Commissioners, on 29th January, 1932, added to the Schedule to the Civil Service Regulation Act, 1924 (No. 5 of 1924), as it is necessary for the Department from time to time to make purely temporary appointments in order to meet any volume of work for which the established staff may be inadequate. The temporary appointments in question are made by the Department from lists of applicants registered for employment at the employment exchanges. In making these purely temporary appointments it is not the practice of the Department, and it would not be feasible, to have regard to the examination for the permanent posts.
As regards the last part of the question, it is anticipated that a certain number of further appointments of established employment clerks will be made in the usual manner from those who qualified at the examination held in December, 1933. The number of appointments that can properly be made from that examination in respect of posts approved of by the Department of Finance is a matter for the decision of the Civil Service Commissioners. It is contemplated that when this limit is reached further appointments to the post of employment clerk will continue to be made as the result of competitive examinations to be held from time to time, but the nature of those examinations has yet to be determined, and it is not yet possible to gauge the Department's normal requirements in respect of established posts for employment clerks.