asked the Minister for Finance if he will state, in regard to the recent appointment of a pay clerk on the Corrib drainage scheme, the system adopted for the selection of a candidate to fill the post, giving details as to how the interview was arranged, and the method by which applications were invited.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Filling of Galway Vacancy.
It is not the practice to invite applications for the post of pay clerk on an arterial drainage scheme.
Ten persons were considered for the post on the Corrib-Clare scheme. Of these, one had applied directly for the position, six had formerly been employed as pay clerks in the Galway area by the Special Employment Schemes Office and three were persons on whose behalf representations had been made. Five of the ten candidates were selected for interview but only four presented themselves. The interviews were held in Galway by the resident engineer and a senior engineer from headquarters.
One part of my question asks the Parliamentary Secretary to state the method by which these applications were invited. I fail to see how these people knew about the matter if there had not been some system whereby applications could be asked for in one way or another.
It is not the practice to invite applications.
How, then, did these ten people happen to know about the matter?
Six of them were formerly employed by the Special Employment Schemes Office. Others made applications. Those of them that the office considered were suitable men were interviewed by the two engineers, as I have already stated.
Will the Parliamentary Secretary tell me how the six people in question knew that a vacancy existed on a certain date, besides all the rest of the people in County Galway?
They were the six people who were dismissed by Fianna Fáil when they got into office. Then, when we were appointing a pay clerk for the Corrib drainage scheme, we wrote to the Special Employment Schemes Office to send us the names and addresses of those men and the six of them were suitable.
Might I ask the Parliamentary Secretary now whether it was the Commissioners of Public Works or Fianna Fáil who dismissed them?
Question No. 29.
That is a separate question.
Fianna Fáil.
Might I ask if the Parliamentary Secretary would tell us about the Tuam beet factory?