The Public Appointments Service (PAS), acts as the centralised recruitment, assessment and selection body for the Civil Service. My Department recruits the majority of our staff through PAS. There are however a small number of exceptions to this which are set out below.
Redeployment
On the dissolution of FORFÁS under The Industrial Development (Forfás Dissolution) Act 2014, 54 FORFÁS staff were appointed to the Department on an unestablished basis along with the transfer of certain functions. FORFÁS staff were not originally recruited by PAS but the Department applied to the Commission for Public Service Appointments for a specific purpose recruitment licence to appoint these transferred staff on an established basis in compliance with the Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) Act 2004. The number of staff currently holding positions above clerical officer grade in this respect are set out in the following table:
Grade
|
Number
|
Assistant Secretary
|
1
|
Principal Officer
|
5
|
Assistant Principal Officer
|
14
|
Higher Executive Officer
|
10
|
Executive Officer
|
3
|
Total
|
33
|
Ministerial Staff
Members of the Dáil, appointed as Ministers and Ministers of State, may make a number of personal appointments to support them with their enhanced workload. The main posts to which such appointments are made are those of Special Adviser and Civilian Driver. Ministerial appointment of Special Advisers are made on foot of Government decision in accordance with section 11 of the Public Service Management Act 1997 and approval of the Taoiseach if appointed from outside the Civil Service. Civilian driver ministerial appointments are made on foot of an excluding order obtained from the Commission for Public Service appointments. Contracts for these posts are prepared in line with the guidelines contained in the 'Instructions to Personnel Officers' as provided by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. The staff currently holding such positions are set out as follows:
Grade
|
Number
|
Special Adviser to the Minister for Business Enterprise and Innovation
|
2
|
Civilian Drivers to the Minister for Business Enterprise and Innovation
|
2
|
Civilian Drivers to the Minister of State* for Trade, Employment, Business, EU Digital Single Market and Data Protection
|
2
|
Total
|
6
|
*The remit for the Minister of State for Training, Skills, Innovation, Research and Development is cross Departmental (Department of Education and Skills and the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation). Ministerial staff appointments fall under the remit of the Department of Education and Skills.