Ruairí Quinn
Ceist:6 Mr. Quinn asked the Taoiseach the current number of staff vacancies by grade in the Office of the Attorney General; and when these will be filled. [12758/00]
Ceisteanna–Questions. - Departmental Staff.
Ruairí Quinn
Ceist:7 Mr. Quinn asked the Taoiseach if his attention has been drawn to the difficulties being experienced in accessing the Statute Book on the website of the Office of the Attorney General; the steps planned to make the Statute Book more accessible; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12759/00]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 6 and 7 together.
The approved staffing levels in the Office of the Attorney General are set out in the following table which will be circulated in the Official Report. The vacancies are to be filled by means of open competition through the Civil Service Commission. The arrangements for a senior draftsman recruitment competition are being made at the moment.
The vacancies in the administration category are at clerical level. Assignments have already been received for four of these vacancies. In addition, the office uses contract people for a number of specialist positions, including library, drafting and indexing.
The office is in discussion with the Department of Finance and expects to increase its numbers. I am aware that there are difficulties in accessing the Irish Statute Book on the website of the Office of the Attorney General and I understand that the problem is currently being addressed by the office.
The existing service on the website provides the Acts of the Oireachtas from 1922 to 1997 only, and is an interim solution which was put in place at the beginning of 1999. The Office of the Attorney General is making arrangements to have the Statute Book from 1922 to 1998, comprising Acts, statutory instruments and chronological tables, available on the website.
One of the reasons for the existing difficulties is that the service uses the same software as the version of the Irish Statute Book which was published on CD-ROM at the end of 1998. The software used to publish the Irish Statute Book had been optimised for use on CD-ROM. Another difficulty is that the current service is hosted in South Africa, as the company which originally carried out the project is based there.
Following a review of the issues involved and a subsequent tendering exercise, the office recently selected a company to carry out required enhancements and updates to the website facility. This will comprise making the latest electronic version of the Irish Statute Book available on the World Wide Web, that is, Acts of the Oireachtas, statutory instruments and the chronological tables to the statutes from 1922 to 1998, and improving the design and search capabilities of the service. In addition, the service will be implemented in a format more suitable for use on the Internet and will be hosted in Ireland. The approximate duration of the project will be four months.
The following is the table:
|
Post |
No. |
Vacancy |
|
Legal Assistant |
23 |
– |
|
Draftsman |
14 |
1 |
|
Administration |
38 |
4 |
Mr. Quinn: I thank the Taoiseach for his reply. We seem to be having an electronic information exchange this afternoon.
Has the contract to upgrade and update the website in the Attorney General's office been placed? The Taoiseach, in his reply, referred to a period of approximately four months but it is not clear whether the contract has been signed and has four months to run or whether the four months will begin from a future date when the contract is signed.
The project was awarded to PAS Digitome as its tender was considered to be the most economically advantageous. The four month period has started.
Has the contractor been identified?
The contract has been signed and the work has commenced.
By autumn of this year the Attorney General's office should be up to speed. When will the additional staff, in addition to the vacancies which are in the process of being filled, be sanctioned by the Department of Finance?
Approval has been given for the appointments. One draftsman and four administrative staff remain to be employed. The legal assistants and the remaining administrative staff have been employed.
The statutes and legislation for the current year will be automatically updated annually so that the current backlog will not be repeated.