Enda Kenny
Question:5 Mr. Kenny asked the Taoiseach the number of staff vacancies in his Department; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22034/03]
Ceisteanna – Questions. - Departmental Staff.
Trevor Sargent
Question:6 Mr. Sargent asked the Taoiseach the number of staff vacancies there are in his Department; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24084/03]
Enda Kenny
Question:7 Mr. Kenny asked the Taoiseach the policy of his Department in respect of the employment of persons with disabilities; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22035/03]
Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin
Question:8 Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin asked the Taoiseach the policy on employment for persons with disabilities within his Department; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27350/03]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 5 to 8, inclusive, together.
There are no vacancies in my Department at present. Vacancies are generally consistent with day to day variations arising from promotions and departures.
Recruitment to fill posts in my Department is in line with the normal procedures that apply to the Civil Service. Staff are assigned by the Civil Service Commission and also recruited through FÁS in the case of services officers, services attendants and cleaners. Internal promotions are effected in accordance with agreed procedures in the Department. My Department is committed to a policy of equal opportunity for all staff. We follow the guidelines set out in the code of practice for the employment of people with disabilities in the Civil Service. Recruitment, promotion, training and all other benefits and opportunities are decided on the grounds of ability, qualifications and other relevant objective criteria.
Of the 193.8 core staff employed in my Department, six people have disabilities. My Department therefore exceeds the 3% target for the employment of people with disabilities. The Department's offices are compatible with the needs of persons with disabilities.
I am pleased to hear that the Department of the Taoiseach is in compliance with the set target. Given that the general rate of unemployment is approximately 4% but the rate of unemployment among those with disabilities is approximately 60%, does the Taoiseach consider it appropriate that the objective of 3% be raised? Would he consider it to be a progressive step and has he discussed it with the Government? Is the Department of the Taoiseach fully accessible to those with disabilities? As a public building, would a person with a disability face problems accessing it?
Every year more work is carried out and the Department is now fully accessible. I have not heard of any difficulties. There is a dedicated parking facility for people with disabilities and this and other improvements have made the Department more accessible to them. That work is ongoing. Many agencies from inside and outside the Department came to discuss disability legislation and the building was accessible to people with disabilities. Accessibility is always difficult for those with disabilities but lifts and ramps help to make the Department accessible.
I used to deal with the 3% employment target for those with disabilities many years ago in the Department of Labour, but we should look not just at that figure. There is a member of my Department on the steering group but I am not up to date on its plans. We should not just work towards the 3% target, but should always try to improve it. The process in my Department, and in those in which I worked previously, was to ensure full equality. Persons who are eligible for employment under the criteria of the Civil Service should be treated equally. That should be done under any recruitment mechanism regardless of reaching the 3%.
Some Departments have reached or surpassed that target and there may be proposals in future to increase the target figure. On the point raised by Deputy Kenny, we should not, on reaching the 3% target, do nothing more. Where suitable opportunities exist we should try to employ those with disabilities because they find it more difficult to secure employment, particularly in the private sector.
The number of public servants will be cut by 2,000 next year. Will the procedure being discussed to implement this cut in numbers – non-replacement of staff – be followed in the Department of the Taoiseach? Has the Taoiseach evaluated the effect of this Government measure on the performance of his Department? Members of staff there are currently overworked so how will those vacancies impact on the work of the Department?
I notice from the Estimates a rise of 9% in 2004 for salaries, wages, allowances and administrative costs. Is that due to the benchmarking increases and where does it fit in with the 28% additional costs –€1.25 million – for incidental expenses? What are incidental expenses? Do they have anything to do with the EU Presidency? A figure of €1 million has been earmarked for the EU Presidency. Will that include increased staff numbers, even on a temporary basis? Will the €1 million cover staffing costs?
I was interested to hear Deputy Kenny ask about the quota for disability. Will the Taoiseach update the House on the gender balance of staff in the Department?
On the question of the Estimates, if the Deputy puts down a question I will give him the details of the subheads—
It is the Taoiseach's Department.
Yes, but this is a question on the staffing. I do not have the details on all the subheads with me. There are additional expenditures next year for the European Union under a number of subheads in my Department. The management group in my Department is responsible not alone for reducing numbers by 4% but also for ensuring that we maintain, within the modernisation programme, the same services. That is a question of management, it is part of the pay agreement and Departments have to manage it. That will be done. Staff costs in my Department in terms of increments, overtime and allowances, particularly next year, will be higher than in other years and those are some of the reasons for the increase at the staffing end. Next year the Department effectively will be open on a daily basis right through the Presidency. It has to be under the normal rules of the Presidency.
What about the gender balance issue?
I do not have a breakdown of the actual number but I gave the figures on this previously. In most of the grades, the gender balance in the Department is close enough to 50:50. Even among the top grades in my Department there is a good gender balance, right up to assistant secretary general.
Does the Taoiseach agree that we should not accept under any circumstances the situation whereby more than 50% of households headed by a person with a disability or a long-term illness are living in relative income poverty? Does he accept that the Government, and perhaps his Department in particular, should be taking the lead in addressing this most unacceptable situation? Given that this is the European Year of People with Disabilities, what measures has the Taoiseach introduced in the course of this year, or that he proposes to introduce before the year's end, to properly mark this very special year to ensure there will be a positive legacy for people with disabilities as a result of measures he would take?
Am I correct in my understanding of the Taoiseach's earlier response that he accepts that the 3% recommendation on employment of people with disabilities should not be seen as a ceiling but rather a strengthening of that, which is what we want, and that it should be expanded on a continuous basis to tackle the serious situation whereby some 70% of people with disabilities are currently unemployed?
Under the existing code and criteria, when posts are being filled we should try to employ as many people with disabilities as we possibly can and, as mentioned by Deputy Kenny earlier, ensure that the facilities are put in place. The Civil Service code of practice for the employment of people with disabilities sets out clear criteria. All staff are recruited on an equal basis of opportunity. Staff are recruited through the Civil Service Commission on the grounds that they meet the requirements of the positions they are to fill. The issue of disability does not impede recruitment and no exceptions are made in my office in this regard. I do not believe they are made in any other Department either.
On the European Year of People with Disabilities, we have had an ongoing interest in that during the year. Additional resources were given to a number of areas and also to the campaign which I launched in January. We allocated resources to the public awareness campaign which covered many issues around making a difference in this area. I also announced some new areas of action some of which cover the public service, agencies and the private sector and including 100 ways of assisting disabled people. In my own Department special leave arrangements were granted to staff who volunteered to work during the Special Olympics. The disability liaison officer of the Department is an active member of the national co-ordination committee of the year. The Cabinet committee on social inclusion is also involved and has raised disability and equality issues in the context of promoting the year and assisting in its development. There has been a campaign based around information posters and newsletters which have been displayed in places throughout my Department and others. There is also a website from which staff can download information. We have offered assistance across a range of areas in the European Year of People with Disabilities.
The Taoiseach should not forget the waiting lists for people with disabilities.
There are two categories of staff in the Civil Service. The majority of civil servants come through the Civil Service competition, while others are appointed at the behest of the Minister. Can the Taoiseach indicate the number of staff who fall into the second category in his Department? When the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission is up and running, which I hope will be at the beginning of the new year, will all categories of staff, irrespective of the posts they hold in the Oireachtas and including those which, up to now, have been in the gift of each Minister, come under the aegis of the new commission?
As regards the breakdown of staff, most of the people are appointed through the Civil Service Commission, other than the grades I mentioned in my Department. However, that is a small number out of the 200 or so in the Department. I do not have the exact figure with me, but it is not a sizeable one. As regards the new commission, I understand the entire operation of the Houses of the Oireachtas will come within the control of the commission.
As regards the 5% reduction, I am not clear about that or about tracing it within the House. I have read a number of times that the Minister for Finance has decreed that there shall be a 5% reduction in staff numbers in the public service. Is that the case and, if so, how is it proposed to implement it? Will it happen through natural wastage or the non-filling of vacancies?
My Department is required to achieve a reduction of 4% in overall staff numbers by 2005. We must do that as part of a process of achieving efficiencies and economies in the way we conduct our business. The process will be managed by the management group in the Department. It will probably not fill vacancies, but restructure each time to ensure we do not reduce the service. As part of the pay agreement, the service and the work must be shared out and managed between others to achieve higher productivity and efficiency and more modernisation within the Department. That is what we must do.
The Department of the Taoiseach must achieve a reduction of 4%. Will that be achieved through the non-filling of vacancies? I presume the Department will not let people go.
No.
By when must that 4% target be achieved and will it happen irrespective of the Presidency?
It will be like the Hanly report in that it will take ten years.
It will happen irrespective of the Presidency. It will probably be done through the non-filling of posts, but there is also the transfer of posts, sections or units. However, there must be a reduction of 4% within the overall figures. The senior management group in the Department – the MAC – must manage it in such a way that service is not cut and difficulties or inefficiencies are not created. It must be done by 2005.
Will it be 4% across the entire service?
It is not often I agree with Deputy Ó Caoláin but I do in this instance.
It is an historic moment.
An historic moment indeed. A total of 55% of households headed by a person with a disability live below the poverty line. In 1994 the NESC and the Commission on the Status of People with Disabilities recommended that there be instituted a cost-of-disability payment to offset this imbalance. In 2000 a working group was set up under the PPF to examine the feasibility of such a payment and in 2002 An Agreed Programme for Government promised that the work of this group would be completed. It is almost three years since the working group was set up but it has not yet reported. Who chairs this group? What resources does this person have at his or her disposal? What is the problem that has prevented this working group from reporting after three years, given that it was based on a promise by Government to implement a cost-of-disability allowance? Is it not perfectly obvious, particularly to those in public life, that the link between poverty and disability is irrefutable? Would the Taoiseach not—
There are 79 questions for the Taoiseach to answer today.
He will not answer one of them.
The question the Deputy is now raising bears no relationship whatsoever to the question submitted.
It does not matter. The Taoiseach will not answer the questions anyway.
I suggest to all Members that they submit questions on the issues about which they are concerned.
In that case—
This question refers specifically to the number of staff vacancies in the Taoiseach's Department.
Is it not true, a Cheann Comhairle, that you have shown blatant favouritism to your constituency colleague?
No, Deputy. The Chair spends far too much time intervening to try to confine Members to the question at issue.
The public record of the Dáil will show that Deputy Ó Caoláin quite rightly asked a question about heads of households who are disabled. Not only that, but he was allowed to ask supplementaries.
He referred to the Taoiseach's Department. The Deputy knows that Question Time cannot function effectively—
We are becoming sidetracked.
If the Ceann Comhairle wants to narrow down the question to cover persons with disability working in the Taoiseach's Department, he may do so. He allowed Deputy Ó Caoláin to ask his question and a supplementary and he allowed the Taoiseach to answer, yet he wants to rule me out of order.
It is very odd.
As far as I can recall, Deputy Ó Caoláin referred specifically to the Taoiseach's Department.
The Ceann Comhairle has never shown any kind of favouritism, nor would I accuse him of that. I want to continue with my question, if I may. Why has the working group not reported after three years?
That is a very pertinent question. I hope the Taoiseach will give a full reply.
The Taoiseach and his Government have promised to implement a non-means tested cost of living disability allowance. Would the Taoiseach explain whether there is a difficulty with the working group?
The Deputy has gone well outside the scope of the question. I suggest he submit a question to the Minister responsible.
Will he confirm that the promise made by his Government in the programme for Government will be implemented? That is a perfectly valid question and the Taoiseach should answer it.
Does he know what promises mean?
If the Deputy wants an answer about a particular working group he should put down a question to the relevant Minister. Without waiting for any report this Government has provided resources towards the education of people with disabilities, whether through classroom assistants or additional special needs teachers. From having a few hundred special needs teachers in the entire country a few years ago, we now have about 6,000. We used to spend only a few million a year on disability grants but the figure in the last budget was about €40 million. In the area of local authority housing there has been a huge increase in funding.
Local authorities have no money for disability grants.
In a range of Departments people are not waiting around to see the report. The resources being put into education, the environment and the health service to help people with disabilities are astronomical.
They are at a standstill.
The increases have been of the order of thousands of percent over the last three years. We did not require a report to do this. The Deputy can put down a question about the working group to which he refers but over that time the Government went ahead and implemented change at enormous cost to the State. That was the right thing to do.
The Taoiseach's reply has itself strayed far and wide over what is covered by the question.
I ask the Deputy to resume his seat.
I want to make a comment about what the Taoiseach said.
I suggest that the Deputy submit a question on the matter and find another way of commenting on it. Raising questions that are totally unrelated is making a mockery of Question Time. The Chair tries to be as fair as possible in allowing Deputies to expand on questions.
As the Chair has pointed out, he has no control over answers given by Ministers or the Taoiseach.
That is correct.
I commend some of the schemes—
There is an obligation on the Chair to ensure that questions refer specifically to the questions submitted.
For many elderly people applying for disabled person's grants or essential repairs grant, no money is available.
There is an embargo on applications.
It is a woeful record.
The Deputy has moved well outside the realm of the question.