I call Deputy Burton to move amendment No. 5.
Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) Bill 2003: Report Stage (Resumed).
Deputy Burton will be here soon. She has left the Chamber briefly to get a copy of the Report Stage grouping list.
Is it an appalling insult to the Minister of State, Deputy Parlon, that Deputy Burton is not here?
I am sure he will have no problem saying so himself.
I am completely insulted.
I move amendment No. 5:
In page 13, line 34, after "Dublin" to insert ", which Act may be cited as the National Gallery Establishment Act 1854".
The Deputy's late arrival was very insulting to the Minister of State.
I am sure he is able to take it on the chin.
Amendment No. 5 is a technical amendment which proposes to insert a correct description of the full title of the Act. It is necessary in the interests of legal completion, in the drafting of the Bill. Perhaps I went too fast for the Minister of State and did not give him enough time to get ready. Maybe apologies are due again.
I have heard no apologies from the Deputy yet.
Perhaps we should call off the war.
I have consulted the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel about amendment No. 5. I am advised that the proposal relates to giving a Short Title to another Act, which does not primarily relate to recruitment and appointments within the public service. It would not be appropriate to use a specific Act to provide for an unrelated matter of general application and I do not intend to accept the amendment for that reason.
Amendment put and declared lost.
As amendment No. 7 is an alternative to amendment No. 6, amendments Nos. 6 and 7 may be discussed together, by agreement.
I move amendment No. 6:
In page 13, to delete lines 35 to 46 and in page 14, to delete lines 1 to 33.
The purpose of this amendment, which is similar to amendment No. 7, is to ensure that the exclusion of certain unestablished positions is in the public interest. The processes of recruitment and promotion should be fair and transparent.
Deputies said this morning that they have fears about the manner in which the Bill is being handled by the Government. When the Bill, which was originally intended as a modest proposal to reform the recruitment of civil servants, is considered with the decentralisation programme, it may be seen as representing the return of extensive powers of political patronage. Such powers, which used to be associated with Civil Service recruitment, have not been seen since the early years of the State. A return to the use of such powers is highly undesirable from the point of view of general public policy and in the interests of efficiency, and it may lead to the appointment to various public positions of people who are less than desirable.
I hope the Government will take the Opposition's advice in this regard. The manner in which this Bill was revamped when decentralisation was announced may have been seen as an ideal way of scoring yet more political strokes. I hope the Minister of State will rethink the matter by including transparency provisions in the Bill. He should remove from the Bill the sections and lines that make the question of transparency highly difficult. We should bear in mind that future recruitment may be undertaken by dispersed agencies at 44 localised points throughout the country.
My amendment No. 7 is linked to amendment No. 6. Section 8 seeks to introduce a provision whereby recruitment to unestablished positions will be excluded from the legislation's terms of reference. It is proposed that Ministers will retain the right to make appointments to unestablished positions if they make requests to that end. If such a request is made, the commission will make an order in that regard. My amendment seeks to provide that the commission will be able to make such an order only if it is deemed to be in the public interest.
It is wrong that over many years Ministers have come to regard appointments to certain positions in their Departments as being part of their personal fiefdoms. Such behaviour, which dates back to a time that has long since gone, should be rooted out. Ministers used to make arbitrary appointments to unestablished positions, such as messengers, cleaners and ushers in their Departments. We have to regard such positions as important public service posts. They should be filled on the basis of the proper assessment of the case of each individual put forward. The procedure should be objective, as one would expect in a modern citizens' democracy. It should not involve Ministers having favoured applicants or looking through lists to find applicants who have made the correct representations or come through the proper channels. It is something that is out of the ark. We should move with the times rather than leave in place a provision of this nature, which harks back to a time when Ministers thought such appointments were part of their personal fiefdoms.
This is bad legislation. The Minister of State should inform his colleagues who sought the inclusion of this provision, whoever they may be, that it is not acceptable. He should make it clear that we will not accept the exclusion of certain unestablished positions from this Bill, for the purposes of allowing Ministers to make appointments. If specific authorities need to retain a right of this nature, it should not be a problem for the commission to certify that it is clearly and absolutely in the public interest.
My amendment seeks to give the commission such powers so that this section of the Bill will not be used by Ministers who are trying to defend fiefdoms that have been out of date for a long time. The powers of this section should be used only if an appointment by the authority, involving the exclusion of the commission from the process, is manifestly in the public interest. The Minister of State, who is a member of the Progressive Democrats, should take this argument on board. A provision of this nature would not be included in the legislation of a progressive and democratic country.
Deputy Burton proposes to delete section 8 of the Bill, which deals with exclusion orders, and Deputy Richard Bruton proposes to amend it. Exclusion orders can be made in certain circumstances to allow recruitment to certain unestablished posts without undertaking the competitive procedures prescribed by the Bill. Such positions are excluded from the Bill to give the recruiting Departments or offices the flexibility to recruit quickly, cost effectively and according to their needs. In recent times, contracts have become a more common means of dealing with the requirement for short-term employment. Excluded positions represent a form of flexibility that was available to management under the Civil Service Commissioners Act 1956. Departments expressed the desire to retain that flexibility in the new legislation.
It is important to bear in mind that the positions in question are temporary and unestablished. The posts are filled temporarily, for example, for a fixed period of time or until a specific project has been completed. Those filling the positions must leave the Civil Service after the period of time has elapsed or when the project has been completed. Examples of posts filled under excluding orders include temporary clerical staff in the Department of Foreign Affairs to attend to seasonal demand, such as the increased demand for passports during the summer months, temporary field officers employed to collect census information for the Central Statistics Office, temporary museum tour guides employed by the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism during busy periods and temporary clerical staff employed to replace civil servants who avail of term time leave of up to 13 weeks during the summer months.
Section 8(8) of the Bill is important and needs to be enacted as it provides that excluding orders made under the 1956 Act shall continue to remain in force. This provision will provide a legal basis for the retention of those people in the Civil Service. Without that provision those holding posts under excluding orders would be required to leave the Civil Service on enactment of the Bill. It is also important to note that the Civil Service Commissioners support the retention of the excluding order facility to ensure the existing flexibility and cost effectiveness are retained.
In response to Deputy Richard Bruton's amendment, the section deals with excluding orders, which can be made in certain circumstances to allow recruitment to certain unestablished posts, to be made in an expeditious fashion. In any event section 13 requires the commission to establish standards of probity, merit equity and fairness and these standards will necessarily underpin all the activities and judgments of the commission, including decisions on when, whether and to whom to grant an excluding order. The commission will act in the public interest at all times and will also provide that any recruitment process is undertaken in accordance with the principles set out in the Bill. Accordingly I cannot accept that amendment either.
I had hoped the Minister of State would show a different attitude. While he has talked about genuinely temporary positions such as those in the Passport Office and summer clerical jobs in local authorities, in reality the filling of these jobs often arouses widespread resentment because the jobs are often filled on the basis of whom the applicant knows. In the case of local authorities in particular, there is a feeling that these jobs are reserved for the families and friends of existing local authority officials who are often the only people who know these jobs are available and for how long.
As these are jobs starting on the bottom rung of the ladder and generally not high-level jobs, it is very important to give a clear signal that the jobs are open to everybody who is qualified. This is particularly true when encouraging back to work someone who has been unemployed for a period and may have returned to education, and for whom getting a temporary job like this is a way to get a permanent job. We do not want an expensive recruitment process but one in which there is the possibility of public scrutiny of such appointments so they are not seen to be filled by the manager's family and friends as is often believed to be the case in local authorities, regardless of whether it is true.
Within the Civil Service temporary jobs, particularly in health boards, often give people an important leg up in terms of getting a permanent job as is understandable. In the case of nurses, taking temporary positions in hospitals and institutions is now almost a sine qua non for getting employment in health boards. The process needs to be transparent and documented. We do not seek an excessively cumbersome process. While I acknowledge what the Minister of State says about the genuinely temporary nature of many of these jobs, they can represent an important road to permanent employment.
Unfortunately in a very decentralised local recruitment process, the capacity for political interference and jobs going to party political favourites becomes very high and will ultimately undermine and demean the public service ethos.
Will the Minister's appointments to unestablished positions be covered by this provision? Is he seeking an exclusion order for Ministers appointing porters, cleaners and others in Departments? Will that be accommodated by this provision? If that is the case, it is clear that the principles of recruitment applied in filling such positions do not comply with any of the codes to which the Minister has drawn our attention. This is why I seek an explicit provision that before granting such an order, the commission must be satisfied that we will have fair and transparent recruitment and promotion.
The Minister of State fobs these off as being temporary positions. I again ask the Minister to refer this matter to his advisers. Is it not the case that after three or four years most unestablished people have the right to apply to become established, which is the conventional route into established positions? If the Minister uses partisan procedures for appointments at the unestablished level, in time those involved move into established positions, which is how they become temporary. They are temporary in the unestablished positions and not within the public service itself. It is a wholly inappropriate system for recruitment in a modern state.
Section 8 only applies to unestablished positions in the Civil Service and not in the local authorities, which will only apply at a later stage if the provisions are rolled out to include local authorities.
The Bill sets the scene. This structure will apply when it is rolled out.
It seems to be suggested that every Minister appoints members of his family and cronies to unestablished positions. This does not apply to my knowledge. I have spent two years in the OPW and the people in such positions are mainly Dublin people who have been there since before I was appointed. The previous Minister of State was from Munster and I do not detect any Munster accents from among them. The Deputy referred to a perception. Regardless of whether this is true, it is purely a perception. The cases of porters and others are covered by section 7(2)(b) and are included in the Schedule.
Excluding orders exist to allow flexibility to appoint people at short notice to temporary positions and the Departments have made clear they want to retain that flexibility. Therefore, I cannot accept the amendments.
When the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy McDowell, was climbing lampposts before the last general election, he claimed that the Progressive Democrats would be some kind of watchdog on Fianna Fáil. The appointment of people on a temporary basis to unestablished positions represents a back door into the Civil Service. It also represents a front door to employment for people who might have gone back to education late and seek a job in the Civil Service.
While it was cleaned up when my party was in office, I remember the time when people looking for jobs in the old Board of Works felt they needed a party card and I do not need to tell the Minister of State the party card to which I refer. When the old ratepayer system existed, there were numerous recorded cases in rural areas of allocation on the basis of party affiliation. We have moved away from that. I accept what the Minister of State says that in his experience he has not seen any favouritism towards any category of person. However, the power now being given to a Minister and to the Civil Service head, who is answerable to the Minister, to fill unestablished positions in different bodies and Departments is a very potent power when it comes to patronage and filling jobs.
The Civil Service will be decentralised to 44 different locations. Originally the Combat Poverty Agency was due to relocate to Monaghan. Even Deputy Ó Caoláin will acknowledge there are severe difficulties with that. The Combat Poverty Agency as with all agencies will employ cleaners, porters and others in ancillary positions. If it is in the political gift of the head of a unit and there is a dominant political culture or political Minister overseeing the area, the person would have to be a saint to resist the pull of locals coming forward and saying they know there is a job going in a particular office and they know somebody who would be suitable. That is human nature. Approaches like that are made to all of us but the point about an independent, uncorrupted Civil Service is that a process is created for filling those vacancies.
The Civil Service Commission was established in the early days of the State to ensure those temptations were not yielded to. The Labour Party wanted this section deleted because there is plenty of provision in the powers given to the boards established under the Bill to allow them establish codes of conduct and so on which could have been flexible in respect of short-term appointments or appointments to unestablished positions.
As the Minister said in his opening contribution, the Bill brings into force much employment legislation in regard to the Civil Service and public bodies. He will be aware that in respect of much EU legislation, regardless of whether one does a job on a part-time or temporary, unestablished basis, once someone works over a certain number of hours for a particular period of time finite employment rights are established. That is appropriate and it is what people like me have argued for but people should get those rights on the basis of fairness, and those opportunities ought to be open to everybody. If a Civil Service Department is deployed to a particular town, will we end up discriminating against the people who come from the local council estate because they do not have a so-called quality address, as happened to people from Sheriff Street in Dublin? The Minister said earlier he has not been a Minister for long but these temptations will be a reality. Perhaps not now but when this Bill is enacted there will be legions of people outside the door of every Minister asking for these jobs to be filled, and politics will be demeaned by it.
I will put the question.
On a point of order, I would like to recommit the Bill in respect of amendment No. 7 to allow me have the opportunity to question the Minister on his ruling out of my amendment. I did not have an opportunity to address his latest comments, which are wholly inadequate, and I would like to recommit the Bill in respect of my amendment because we should not agree to recruitment practices from the Middle Ages.
Yes.
We should have the opportunity to have a proper debate on this issue.
Does the Minister wish to recommit the Bill in respect of amendment No. 7?
Absolutely not.
Is the Deputy pressing the issue?
Absolutely, because we need to have a modern public service.
Question, "That the Bill be recommitted in respect of amendments Nos. 6 and 7", put and declared lost.
Is Deputy Burton pressing amendment No. 6?
No. I will follow what DeputyBruton has done. It appears, from the response of this Minister, that he is not inclined——
We are putting the question. We cannot open the debate again. You have already spoken three times on the amendment.
Can I get your guidance, a Cheann Comhairle?
Are you withdrawing your amendment No. 6?
No. Deputy Bruton moved amendments Nos. 6 and 7.
No. Deputy Burton put her amendment.
I am sorry. I am a little confused by the procedure.
On the procedure, if you wish to withdraw your amendment we can then have a decision on Deputy Bruton's amendment No. 7.
I do not wish to withdraw my amendment.
Question, "That the words proposed to be deleted stand", put and declared carried.
Amendment declared lost.
Amendment No. 7 cannot be moved.
On a point of order, might it not be appropriate that greater opportunity would be given to the grouping of amendments being proposed in future? We have a situation now, with amendments Nos. 6 and 7, where amendment No. 7 cannot be proceeded with in terms of debate. The grouping list is given to us after the commencement of each Stage of a Bill and that is a terrible disadvantage for Opposition Deputies. We have no input into the grouping procedure yet we can see now the disadvantage that rolls from it.
In this instance, Deputy, amendment No. 7 is negatived by accepting amendment No. 6.
But not vice versa.
That is only because they are grouped.
Amendment No. 7 cannot be moved if amendment No. 6 is defeated.
That is only the case because of the way you put the question, a Cheann Comhairle. Deputy Burton's amendment was to delete lines 35 to 46 but you put the question that the words proposed to be deleted stand, which is a different question. I have a right to amend the existing text and add to that text. I am seeking to add to the text.
They are related, a Cheann Comhairle, but they are different.
They are related. My amendment does not——
They cannot be added in. The House has decided——
That validates what Deputy Ó Caoláin said. It is an unfair decision that we were not party to.
The Deputy is aware that the same procedures have been followed for the 27 years I have been a Member of this House and amendments have been grouped to facilitate us in dealing expeditiously with business in the House. There is nothing unusual about the way amendments Nos. 6 and 7 have been dealt with. If the House is of the view there is a different way of dealing with them——
Clearly the House does not in this situation.
Amendment No. 7 not moved.
I move amendment No. 8:
In page 14, to delete lines 41 and 42.
The purpose of this amendment is to delete the provision in the Bill which states:
(1) The Commission and the Public Appointments Service may each charge fees, if any, to public service bodies in respect of any service carried out under this Act ...
(2) A licence holder may charge fees, if any, to candidates for a competition to which this Act applies.
I have a fundamental objection to people who wish to make application for a Civil Service appointment in this independent Republic being charged fees. We had an earlier discussion about inflation and the cost of services in this economy but the private recruiters who are being let in under this Act will be willing to charge candidates handsome fees.
We saw the introduction of a fee regime in the case of the Freedom of Information Act where the initial fee of €15 was modest but the cost of the appeal and the subsequent review brought the charge up to approximately €250. That has destroyed the Freedom of Information Act as a working tool to provide information in this society. That provision, among others, is one of the most obnoxious in the Bill in that applicants for Civil Service jobs are to be charged fees. There are many people in society for whom the charging of such fees would be a matter of disinterest. The money would not matter to them, just as there are parents who can afford to spend €10,000 on fees for somebody to become a barrister and hardly notice it out of their small change. For others, it is a crippling restraint on entering a profession. This is the thin end of the wedge and the Labour Party is opposed to this provision.
With the ideology to which the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy McDowell, gave free rein last night, the market is triumphant in this State. Young people seeking Civil Service appointments will end up bidding for their applications. I reject this invidious proposal. Less well-off parents tell us that the costs of junior and leaving certificate examinations are already expensive, along with registration fees for third level colleges. The Labour Party rejects this stealth tax for those applying for Civil Service positions.
I support DeputyBurton's amendment. Section 10(2) contains a deplorable proposition. The Minister of State must recognise that many young people apply for a raft of different jobs before they are successful. Many will be forced to decide between an application fee or an essential of life. Many are often surprised when they are successful in their applications, believing originally that they did not have much of chance. A fee for young people applying for jobs within the public service is outrageous and will curtail open competition.
Deputy Burton pointed to the decrease in freedom of information requests after the introduction of fees. This provision will see a repetition of this, dissuading many in applying for a variety of opportunities in employment that they otherwise would have. For many applicants it depends on how they perform at the interview on the day. It is unacceptable that many young people will now be denied access to employment that might in other circumstances have come their way. In an open society, the idea that one can buy one's way into consideration is unacceptable. In the past, the accusation was that such positions were bought. We want open, transparent and accessible job opportunities in the public service. The idea of a fee is in contradiction to this and should not be proceeded with. I urge the Minister of State to accept the amendment.
Debate adjourned.