Confirmed: Less than 1% of civil servants opt for Govt’s career break.

Friday, 10 July 2009

New information has confirmed that the Government’s much-vaunted career break scheme for civil servants is an abject failure with only 300 civil servants applying for it.

The information was released in a Parliamentary Question.

It is clear that one of the cornerstones of the Government’s plan to cut the public sector bill has failed.

Fianna Fáil and the Greens were relying on the ‘Special Incentive Career Break Scheme’ to cut the civil service pay bill significantly. To start off, the 111,000 workers in the HSE cannot avail of the Scheme as the HSE has suspended the scheme due to trade unions difficulties. This leaves the 35,000 civil servants employed in the country. However, only 300 of these have applied for the career break scheme, a paltry 0.86%.

It was ridiculous for the Government to assume that there would be any significant interest in the Scheme. There are 413,000 people unemployed in the country and by December, that number will most likely exceed half a million. Who in their right mind would choose to leave their job in an economic climate like that?

The Government’s reliance on a Scheme like this was folly at best. It highlights the complete absence of a coherent plan coming from Fianna Fáil and the Greens where un-costed, ill-thought out plans, such as this one are advanced to fill the hole in Exchequer finances.

Fine Gael would rather see a firm plan with key milestones and timelines for tackling our lost competitiveness.

DÁIL QUESTION NO 173

To ask the Minister for Finance the number of people who have availed of the career break scheme as announced by him in Budget 2009 in tabular form; the sections of the public service they are from; and the level of position they held.
- Simon Coveney.

For WRITTEN answer on Tuesday, 7th July, 2009: Ref No: 28029/09

REPLY

Minister for Finance (Mr Lenihan): Officials from my Department are currently engaged in a process of collecting the necessary information that is required to provide a fuller answer to this Parliamentary Question from the line Departments. It is anticipated that this information will be available shortly and I will be writing to Deputy Coveney in the near future.

The information to hand indicates that, by the end of June, nearly 300 civil servants had applied to the Special Incentive Career Break Scheme. The closing date of the Scheme for civil servants was the 1st July 2009. Other areas of the public service have set later dates for applications so that the overall impact of the Scheme cannot be assessed until later this year. The HSE has suspended the Scheme because several Trades Union have instructed their members not to co-operate with redeployments arising from the operation of the Schemes outlined in the Supplementary Budget.