In my role as Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, I have overarching responsibility for the public service including pay, pensions and employment numbers. Specific staffing matters for the wider public service - such as are raised in the Deputy's question - are the responsibility of various Government Ministers, in accordance with the legislation setting up public service bodies or agencies under their aegis. My area of direct responsibility is for civil service staffing.
The Deputy will be aware from my reply to a previous question that in October last year the Government approved the introduction of a new approach to support Irish language proficiency in the civil service. These new arrangements were put in place in the context of replacing the policy of awarding bonus marks for Irish language proficiency in civil service recruitment and promotion competitions which was not meeting the Government's objectives for Irish language proficiency in the civil service. Under the new approach measures are being introduced to increase the cohort of functional bilinguals in the civil service in order to reflect a more competency-based approach to recruitment and, where appropriate, promotion competitions
The new arrangements were notified to Departments by my Department in November last. In December last, my Department wrote to Departments and Offices requesting that they review the Workforce Planning frameworks previously submitted and to identify posts/areas of work requiring functional bilinguals and to include these in a revised workforce action plan. This exercise is on-going and is expected to provide information on the demand from Departments for functional bilinguals. This information will facilitate arrangements being put in place to ensure that the requirement for Government Departments to provide services through Irish is met.
My Department does not currently compile information on staff who are competent to conduct business in the two official languages of the State. The arrangements being put in place in relation to the identification of the number of functional bilinguals in the civil service can play an important role in improving the information available on Irish language competency.
