AGRICULTURE COMMITTEE:THE OIREACHTAS Committee on Agriculture is writing to the Minister for Finance and Minister for Agriculture to express concern at the potential damage of the Government recruitment ban on the farm advisory service. Teagasc director Prof Gerry Boyle told the committee yesterday the service had only 271 permanent advisers and this could fall to 200 by 2014.

Due to early retirement and the recruitment ban, it lost 69 permanent and 65 contract staff since 2008, serving 44,000 paying clients, he said. “By end 2014, based on retirements at the normal retirement age we estimate that the number of permanent advisers will have declined to 237,” he added.

“However, there is a prospect that this number could decline further to about 200 as there is a possibility that a significant number of advisers that are due to retire between now and 2016 could choose to retire before 2012,” he said.

He added that while staff had responded extremely well to the increased workload, the service was under considerable strain.