Madam, – Dan O’Brien (Home News, September 22nd) writes that “the Government’s public sector hiring freeze is nowhere to be seen in the numbers” in the Quarterly National Household Survey.
On September 11th, The Irish Timesreported that numbers employed in the public service declined by 10,000 between January 2009 and March this year, according to figures supplied by the Minister for Finance.
Of this total, employment declined by 2,964 in local authorities; 1,997 in the civil service; 1,679 in education; 1,272 in health; 573 in non-commercial State sponsored bodies and 529 in defence.
The State’s payroll bears out this information, and would appear to be at odds with the information published in the Quarterly National Household Survey.
In her response to the earlier reported employment reduction, Labour TD Joanna Tuffy observed, “We are in danger of having a weaker public service, with services stretched and staff under more pressures.” This is certainly borne out by the experience of public service workers in their day-to-day work. There has been an increased demand for services driven by the recession, but fewer people employed to provide them.
The moratorium on employment remains in place, and it will cause an accelerated reduction in public service employment in the medium term.
The Croke Park agreement is designed to address the issues of capacity in the public sector that will arise while that moratorium remains.
It may take some time yet for the net employment reduction to be accurately reflected in the Quarterly National Household Survey. – Yours, etc,