Vol. 423 No. 4
101 Mr. Gilmore asked the Minister for the Marine when he will sanction the appointment of a deputy manager in each regional fisheries board as recommended in the report of the enquiry into the Ballycotton drowning tragedy given that the tragedy occurred in July 1990 and the report of the enquiry was issued in July, 1991.
102 Mr. Gilmore asked the Minister for the Marine when he will make available to the regional fisheries boards the resources, in terms of staff, necessary for the boards to enforce the fisheries law as recommended by the report of the enquiry into the Ballycotton drowning tragedy given that the tragedy occurred in July, 1990, that the report of the enquiry was issued in July, 1991 and also given the large number of vacancies in the boards.
I propose to take Questions Nos. 101 and 102 together.
I would refer the Deputy to the answer I gave the House on Tuesday, 31 March 1992 on the subject of staffing of the fisheries boards.
In that answer I explained that I was endeavouring to fill certain priority posts in the boards, and that includes the deputy manager posts.
However, it is necessary, in accordance with Government policy, owing to restrictions on public expenditure, and by extension recruitment to the public service, to explore the possibility of filling these posts by redeployment from within the Public Service.
I understand that the Revenue Commissioners have completed their restructuring of the Customs and Excise Service and as a result of this they have identified surplus staff in certain areas. They expect to be in a position to offer redeployment to these surplus staff on a targeted basis. This process will commence later this month.
The fisheries boards have been given priority regarding the reallocation of redeployed staff and I expect that there will be staff available in the near future for redeployment to the fisheries boards.
