New payment scheme means 400 staff are surplus to requirements
Reporting to the Oireachtas Committee of Public Accounts, Tom Moran, Secretary General of the Department, said, “It is not so long ago since it had a staff of 6,000 people. As of today it has a staff of 4,360 people, and we will further reduce the number. We will definitely not retain staff unless there is work for them”.
Due to the introduction of the new payment scheme, 400 staff became surplus to requirements, and 180 have been transferred to other Departments. The Department plans to have all 400 re-deployed by the end of this year.
The garda operation in Castlebar has taken 55 of the re-deployed staff. Their work there includes inputting incident reports from gardaí around the country into the Pulse system. Members are also expected to go to the Garda Síochána’s headquarters in Thurles and human resources operation in Navan, to the national parks and wildlife service in Ballybay, Co Monaghan, the Civil Defence, driver testing centres and the Land Registry in Roscommon.
“We will definitely not retain staff unless there is work for them”, Mr Moran told the Committee of Public Accounts. “The first step in the process is the deployment of voluntary applicants. When they have all been transferred, the next step is the following of an agreed protocol, which involves the normal Civil Service procedures, whereby the most junior in the particular grade must move”, he explained.
