Ivor Callely
Ceist:230 Mr. Callely asked the Minister for the Environment the number of personnel within his Department who are on career breaks, job sharing or have other special arrangements. [22104/96]
Written Answers. - Departmental Staff.
The information requested is as follows: career breaks, 40; job-sharing, 57; staff on special leave without pay and on secondment, 34.
Ivor Callely
Ceist:231 Mr. Callely asked the Minister for Education the total payments made to civil servants in her Department in respect of overtime in 1995; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [21944/96]
A total of £0.59 million was paid out to civil servants in my Department in respect of overtime in 1995.
The overtime allocation is mainly spent on work relating to the examinations branch. This accounted for approximately 66 per cent of the overtime expenditure in 1995.
The work of the examinations branch is governed by extremely tight time constraints and deadlines. The pattern of the workload is seasonal, dominated by a peak period leading up to the start of the certificate examinations in June and the issuing of results in mid-August, (leaving cert.) and mid-September, (junior cert.)
The resources employed by the Department in managing this pattern comprise a core staffing complement augmented by temporary employees and overtime working. Due to the seasonal nature of the workload it would be inefficient to employ more than a core of permanent staff. Approximately 70 temporary staff are recruited each year. The balance of resources necessary to meet the tight deadlines set by the Department for holding of examinations and the issue of results is made up by overtime working.