asked the Minister for the Public Service if he will report on the embargo to recruitment in the civil service; and the effects the system is having on the Civil Service.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Recruitment Embargo.
13.
1. Since 23 December 1981, only one vacancy in every three arising in the Civil Service may be filled. Exemptions from the embargo have been allowed in certain cases, for example, to replace officers taking career breaks or going to serve with international organisations of which Ireland is a member.
2. Vacancies may also be filled when they reduce the strength of a grade by more than one-third. In such cases a vacancy in the next lowest grade must be held open in compensation.
3. To date, some 2,650 vacancies in the non-industrial Civil Service have been left unfilled as a result of the embargo. Staff required for new or expanded services are being provided for by redeployment both within Departments and, in some cases, from one Department to another.
4. The Government are satisfied that as a result of the big expansion in public service numbers in the late seventies, there is still considerable scope for staffing economies in the Civil Service. Accordingly, as announced in the national plan, Building of Reality, it has been decided that the embargo will continue in operation until the end of 1987.
I asked the Minister a similar question last week. Will he accept there is much unfairness in the way the system operates at present, particularly in relation to the non-established grades in the public service? What will he do to stop the abuses that are occurring in the system? What happens is that when it comes to a section losing a grade it is not lost out of the established grades or from the senior officers but is taken from the grade of usher, attendant, storeman or paperkeeper. That happens on a wide scale and the Minister agreed with me on that last week. I am asking him now what he will do to stop that kind of unfairness.
We dealt with this matter last week. I pointed out to the Deputy that where it has come to our notice that there is a pattern of embargo that seems to stretch the bounds of credibility too far we have taken the matter up with the Department concerned. We are working to ensure that the effect of the embargo is felt evenly across grades.