Departmental Staff.

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 26 January 2010

Tuesday, 26 January 2010

Questions (327)

George Lee

Question:

413 Deputy George Lee asked the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism further to Parliamentary Question No. 231 of 1 December 2009, if he will provide the requested information as has been done by the Departments of Education and Science, Health and Children, Finance, Foreign Affairs, the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Social and Family Affairs, Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, and Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and is currently being compiled by the Departments of Defence and the Taoiseach; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2978/10]

Written answers

Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism (Deputy Martin Cullen)

In the reply to Question No. 231 of 1 December 2009, the Deputy was referred to relevant and easily-accessible published data in the Department's annual reports and the annual estimates for the Department which show the overall staffing numbers, grade breakdown and total payroll costs at year end. This information is provided in these publications specifically in order to meet requests from public representatives and the wider public for such data and is available both on the Department's website www.dast.gov.ie and in the Dáil Library. In order to be helpful to the Deputy, the following table has been compiled and sets out a breakdown of staff numbers by grade at the end of each of the years since the Department was established.

Grade	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008
Secretary General	1.00	1.00	1.00	1.00	1.00	1.00
Assistant Secretary	3.00	3.00	3.00	3.00	3.00	3.00
Director	3.00	3.00	1.00	1.00	1.00	1.00
Principal Officer	9.00	9.00	9.00	10.00	10.00	10.00
Assistant Principal	21.50	23.10	22.70	24.10	24.10	24.30
Professional Accountant	1.00	1.00	1.00	1.00	1.00	1.00
Higher Executive Officer	32.00	30.40	23.80	24.80	24.80	25.40
Administrative Officer	1.00	1.00	1.00
Executive Officer	34.00	37.98	28.43	31.90	31.90	35.07
Staff Officer	4.50	3.30	3.50	3.00	3.00	5.00
Clerical Officer	78.00	75.80	40.70	42.80	42.80	33.70
Head Services Officer			1.00	1.00	1.00	1.00
Services Officer	10.00	8.00	9.00	11.00	11.00	8.00
Senior Attendant	5.00	5.00
Services Attendant	5.00	4.00
Ministerial Contract Staff	3.00	3.00	4.00	4.00	4.00	4.00
Cleaner	9.00	7.00
Caretaker	2.00	1.00
Keeper	10.00	11.00	1.00	1.00	1.00	1.00
Senior Archivist	4.00	3.00	3.00	3.00	3.00	3.00
Archivist	3.00	7.00	8.00	8.00	8.00	11.00
Conservation Officer	3.00	3.00	1.00	0.50	0.50	0.50
Conservation Intern				1.00	1.00	1.00
Head of Services	1.00	0.00
Asst. Keeper Grade I	12.00	16.10	1.00	1.00	1.00	1.00
Asst. Keeper Grade II	42.00	30.00
Preservation Officer	1.00	1.00
Senior Technical Officer	1.00	1.00
Technical Officer	1.00	1.00
Senior Technical Assistant	2.00	2.00
Technical Assistant	19.00	18.00
Senior Library Assistant	4.00	3.00
Library Assistant Grade I	6	5.75
Library Assistant Grade II	4.00	4.00
Library Assistant Grade III	14.00	16.00
Science and Art Attendant	65.00	63.78
Senior Photographer	1.00	1.00
Photographer	1.00	1.00
Head Attendant	1.00	1.00
Mounter and Binder	1.00	1.00
Archaeologist	2.00	2.00
Visually Impaired Telephonist	1.00	0.80
Student Clerical Officer	3.00	3.00
Senior Graphic Artist	1.00	1.00
Graphic Artist	2.00	1.00
Totals	427.00	414.01	163.13	173.10	173.10	169.97

It was not possible in the time provided to give any reasonably accurate or meaningful average wage cost for the grades of staff employed in the Department over the period from mid 2002 to 2008 given the format in which the relevant information is retained. In addition during that period, the Department included the National Museum of Ireland and the National Library of Ireland until they were established as separate legal entities in May 2005, both of which employ a significant number of professional and technical grades. Also due to the decentralisation of the Department to Killarney there was a turnover of staff for the years 2006 to 2009 in excess of 90%. In light of all these factors any effort to compute average wage costs based on data retained would involve a disproportionate amount of staff resources in what would likely give a less than satisfactory result. The relevant pay scales for Civil Service grades and key professional grades are already a matter for public record.