Vol. 551 No. 2
186 Mr. Ring asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Rural Development if there is a union embargo on the processing of all REP scheme applications at the FDS office in Castlebar, County Mayo; if so, the steps which are being taken to resolve this matter; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9840/02]
The IMPACT Union has withdrawn its co-operation in respect of the processing of all REP scheme applications in all FDS offices throughout the country on the basis that a satisfactory solution to the implementation of the recommendations of a report carried out by the management services division of my Department on the staffing in the technical agricultural officer grades of the farm development service areas has not been finalised.
However, the position is that the substantive problem identified in the report was the bottleneck at supervisory agricultural officer grade and the recommendations in the report to resolve this problem were to provide seven extra supervisory agricultural officer posts and to review the staffing position over time.
My Department has not only agreed to fully implement these recommendations but has offered to increase the number of supervisory agricultural officer posts recommended in the report from seven to 12 to address not only the current staffing position but to take into account increasing workloads in the longer term.
