Pensioned civil servants rehired at cost of €1m

THE Government paid over €1 million last year to rehire civil servants it had already pensioned off because no one else was trained to do their jobs, according to Opposition TDs.

The Justice Department paid nearly half the total amount to get back the “grey power” it had put into retirement.

Green TD Dan Boyle said the “excessive” scale of the practice pointed to a lack of foresight on the part of the Government.

The Justice Department spent €571,000 to re-employ 24 ex-civil servants, the annual report of the Government financial watchdog shows.

The Attorney General’s Office paid €154,000 of taxpayers’ money to two pensioned-off officials to come back to work on a contract basis.

One received €81,000 and the other civil servant was brought out of retirement for €73,000.

The Comptroller and Auditor General’s report reveals that a total of €1,137,000 was paid by the Government in 2004 to bring back staff that had previously been let go.

The Environment Department splashed out €146,000 to get back 15 personnel that had been pensioned-off.

The Department of Foreign Affairs paid €85,000 to rehire staff.

Five people were brought out of retirement at the Office of Public Works at a cost of €70,000.

The Department of Communication, Marine and Natural Resources spent €63,000 in the same way.

The figure for the Gaeltacht Affairs Department was €27,000, in the Garda it was €13,000, and the Land Registry paid €8,000.

Mr Boyle insisted it was another example of taxpayers’ money being used wastefully.

“This does seem excessive, but I think it suggests a wider problem with the way the civil service trains people. They obviously need to bring people back because they realise no one else is able to do that particular job.

“So we have this strange practice of people receiving a pension and being paid to come back to work.

“We have become all too used to waste from this Government, and no doubt these people do a very valuable job when rehired, but the system does seem unsatisfactory from the taxpayers’ point of view,” he added.