Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 20 Mar 2002

Vol. 550 No. 4

Written Answers. - Civil Service Recruitment.

Seán Ryan

Ceist:

290 Mr. S. Ryan asked the Minister for Finance the numbers of administrative officers recruited to the Civil Service by competition open to the general public as at 31 December 2001; and the number of such people who had not formerly been civil servants as at 31 December 2001. [8473/02]

Seán Ryan

Ceist:

291 Mr. S. Ryan asked the Minister for Finance the numbers of administrative officers recruited to the Civil Service by competition open to the general public in each of the years from 1996 to 2001; and the number who had not formerly been civil servants. [8474/02]

Minister for Finance (Mr. McCreevy)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 290 and 291 together.

I am informed by the Office of the Civil Service and Local Appointments Commissioners that the competitions for the recruitment of administrative officers, which are open to the general population, attract a wide range of applicants with varying backgrounds and qualifications, including serving civil servants and persons who may be returning to employment in the Civil Service.

It is not the practice of the CSLAC to compile or collate statistics regarding the employment his tory of open competition recruits. However, in order to address the Deputy's inquiry in some manner the CSLAC has reviewed the assignments for the last six years and provided the following figures:

	2001	2000*	1999*	1998	1997	1996
Total Assigned	126	95	52	43	7	31
Serving Civil Servants	84	53	38	N/A	N/A	N/A
Non Civil Servants at theTime of Assignment	42	42	14	N/A	N/A	N/A

* The numbers of serving civil servants assigned in these years have been estimated.

It is important to note that these figures represent the number ‘assigned' rather than the number who actually took up appointment.

Seán Ryan

Ceist:

292 Mr. S. Ryan asked the Minister for Finance the numbers of executive officers recruited to the Civil Service by competition open to the general public as at 31 December 2001; and the number of such people who had not formerly been civil servants as at 31 December 2001. [8475/02]

Seán Ryan

Ceist:

293 Mr. S. Ryan asked the Minister for Finance the numbers of executive officers recruited to the Civil Service by competition open to the general public in each of the years from 1996 to 2001; and the number of such people who had not formerly been civil servants. [8476/02]

Minister for Finance (Mr. McCreevy)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 292 and 293 together.

The numbers of executive officers who were recruited to the civil service by open competition in the period from 1996 to 2001 are set out in the following table:

Year	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001
Total Assigned	39	83	86	385	420	489

It has not been possible for the Civil Service and Local Appointments Commission to compile or collate statistics regarding the employment history of open competition recruits as they do not gather information on that basis. In this context, it is important to note that the figures given represent the numbers assigned rather than the number who took up the appointment.