Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 13 July 2023
445. Deputy Darren O'Rourke asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the progress to date on the strategic workforce plan and skills need assessment in MARA; how this has impacted on the workforce plan and recruitment; how this will be resourced; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34882/23]
View answer446. Deputy Darren O'Rourke asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the progress to date on the strategic workforce plan and skills need assessment in MARA with reference to environmental and marine expertise specifically; how this has impacted on the workforce plan and recruitment; how this will be resourced; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34883/23]
View answer453. Deputy Darren O'Rourke asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage if he will report on the staffing levels in the Maritime Area Regulatory Authority; the appointments to date and their salaries, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34939/23]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 445, 446 and 453 together.
An initial Strategic Workforce Planning exercise and skills needs assessment for MARA was completed in Q1 2023. This identified some of the specialist skills, such as legal, financial and technical that MARA will require. Building on this work, a Strategic Workforce Plan for MARA is currently being developed. This will set out the medium term resourcing requirements for the agency which will be complemented by a recruitment strategy. It will be a matter for MARA to prepare and submit workforce plans to my Department for consideration and approval, as appropriate.
It is expected that MARA will need to expand to a workforce of at least 30 as soon as possible to allow it to undertake its statutory functions. A staff complement of approximately 60 is envisaged as being required in the medium term. Additional resources will be required across administrative, legal, financial and technical areas including marine engineering, environmental, planning and GIS. MARA has been allocated a budget of €4.3m for 2023, including €2.4m for payroll related costs.
A breakdown of the current staffing complement of MARA is below. Staff of MARA are civil servants and as such are paid under the civil servants payscales which are available on the Civil Service Payscales website at the following link - civilservicepayscales.per.gov.ie .
|
Grade |
Headcount |
|
Chief Executive Officer |
1 |
|
Principal Officer |
1 |
|
Assistant Principal Officer |
4 |
|
Engineer Grade 1 Civil |
1 |
|
Higher Executive Officer |
9 |
|
Executive Officer |
4 |
|
Clerical Officer |
1 |
