asked the Minister for Agriculture if he will sympathetically examine the case of those of his officers employed in the land project work for many years on a temporary basis, who have given excellent service and have no pension rights whatever.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Temporary Land Project Officers.
21.
This matter is the subject of a claim submitted by the Staff Side of my Department's Conciliation Council. The claim will be considered as sympathetically as possible.
Can the Minister say when the people employed in this grade last got an increase?
I cannot say, but I am sure they were considered with all other servants of the State.
I am afraid they were not.
This question does not refer entirely to matters of pay.
May we assume that these officers' primary concern is establishment, and that if in their case the Minister fails to find established employment for them in the Land Project section they will be given preferential consideration for established posts in analogous grades in other branches of the Department's technical services?
I do not understand the Deputy's point.
If there is a temporary Land Project officer for whom you cannot find an established vacancy in the Land Project, might we reasonably assume that the Minister would give such an officer preference when the filling of established posts in other sections on the technical side of the Minister's Department arises?
We have quite a number of unestablished people in more or less similar grades—for example, farm buildings, potato inspection, meat marketing, the scheme for the eradication of bovine tuberculosis, cow-testing instructors, and so on. There is a procedure, as explained by the Minister for Finance on the Report Stage of the Superannuation (Pensions) Bill, which is followed in relation to all these officers. As I said in my reply, there is a claim now before the Department's conciliation council. The procedure which has been followed in the past and outlined by the Minister will be followed in the discussions on that claim.
Is there any possibility that more permanent posts can be provided in this Department? The Minister has appealed to committees of agriculture to cut out temporary posts and to make them permanent as far as possible. It seems unreasonable to keep people so long in temporary positions.
This is part of the claim which has been made and which will be investigated.