Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 9 July 2024
250. Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform the extent to which normal retirement, early retirement, or other factors are likely to feature in the context of staffing levels throughout the public sector in the course of the current year and the remaining years up to 2030; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29964/24]
View answerThere are no centralised forecasts of public service staffing over the period to 2030 conducted by my Department. Public service staffing is largely managed through a policy of delegated sanction, which been in place since 2015. Under this delegated sanction framework, Departments are permitted to fill vacancies through recruitment and/or promotion, in grades up to and including Principal Officer Standard or equivalent, subject to remaining within the overall pay bill ceiling. This pay bill ceiling forms part of the annual budget agreement.
Public service employee whole time equivalent outturns are collected and collated after the end of each quarter. Forecast end-year public service employee numbers are published in the Revised Estimates Volume (REV) in December of the preceding year. The end-2024 public service employee numbers forecast in REV 2024 are 406,571 full-time equivalents, excluding Oireachtas staff.
In relation to future public service retirements, analysis of projected Civil Service retirements is undertaken periodically, most recently in 2021. This paper may be accessed at: gov.ie/pdf/?file=https://assets.gov.ie/203587/62b1f52c-373c-450e-9e18-d16f6dca1528.pdf#page=null.
