Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 11 Feb 1993

Vol. 425 No. 8

Written Answers. - Special Adviser.

Eamon Gilmore

Ceist:

26 Mr. Gilmore asked the Minister for Finance the reason a person (details supplied) who was formerly employed as a special adviser to the Minister for Industry and Commerce was promoted to a specially created temporary and supernumerary post of Principal Officer (Higher Scale) in the Office of the Revenue Commissioners; if his attention has been drawn to the concern expressed by the Association of Higher Civil Servants regarding the manner of the promotion which, they claim, is in breach of agreed procedures; if he will confirm that it was written into this adviser's contract when he was first employed at the Department of Industry and Commerce that such a post would be created for him when he left; the steps, if any, he intends to take to deal with the industrial dispute which is now threatened in the Revenue Commissioners as a result of the promotion; and if he will make a statement on the matter.

Minister for Finance (Mr. B. Ahern)

The officer concerned was seconded from the Revenue Commissioners in November 1989, to act as special adviser to the then Minister for Industry and Commerce, at a salary equivalent to the scale for Principal Officer (Higher Scale). When the Minister left office in November 1992, the officer returned to the Revenue Commissioners on the same salary scale he had held in Industry and Commerce. This involved a formal promotion from his former grade in Revenue, which was Assistant Principal. I am aware that the Association of Higher Civil Servants have expressed concern about these arrangements, but I have already ensured that no serving officer would lose out by creating a temporary and supernumerary post of Principal (Higher Scale) to accommodate the officer's reabsorption into the Office of the Revenue Commissioners. This is a post that would not otherwise exist and it ensures that no other officer's promotion outlets are thereby blocked or diminished. The present Government has adopted a guideline that no serving civil servant may be promoted on joining a Private Office as special adviser or otherwise, and also that civil servants should not be promoted outside of the normal course when Ministers are vacating office.