Vol. 491 No. 4
83 Mr. Higgins (Mayo) asked the Minister for the Environment and Local Government if employees of local authorities who had to resign from employment as a result of the bar on married women, who applied for reinstatement between the years 1991 and 1993, are eligible, or are under consideration, for public service reemployment. [12424/98]
By re-instatement, I take it the Deputy means special re-admission to employment outside of the normal recruitment route. There was a practice of departures from the normal recruitment regulations being granted by the Minister to enable women to be reappointed in certain circumstances to their former positions on compassionate grounds. However, following a Labour Court determination on 23 July 1993 and legal advice that a similar re-admission scheme in the Civil Service was in conflict with the equal treatment directive, the practice of granting these departures ceased.
All officer posts are filled by competition, open to everybody with the qualifications for the particular post. I might mention that I am currently reviewing the upper age limits generally applicable to competitions for local authority positions, in the context of the Employment Equality Bill, 1997; changes in this respect would remove an obstacle which may exist for certain former women employees seeking to compete for a position within the service.
