The Government is to scrap a 50-year old system for appointing civil servants and gardaí and allocating high-level jobs in local authorities and the health boards.
Government departments will have power to recruit staff directly and to use private recruitment agencies, subject to a State licence.
The introduction of the Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) Bill, 2003, is one of the conditions of the Sustaining Progress national pay deal.
The Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy said: "These recruitment reforms have been planned for some time. It's clear that the recruitment systems had to change to meet modern circumstances.
"The Government's decentralisation programme announced in Budget 2004 means that these new, more flexible procedures will be all the more essential."
Decentralisation will mean that the Civil Service would have to recruit, promote and transfer staff countrywide, the Minister went on. "The new Bill will allow for more locally-focused recruitment and promotion. That's going to be vital in making certain that decentralisation happens smoothly and effectively."
However, the Department of Finance insisted that the publication of the legislation was not linked to fears that some older civil servants will not transfer out of Dublin.
"Under Sustaining Progress, the legislation should have been published over the summer, so, if anything, we could be accused of being late," an official said.
The changes will introduce "real flexibility" into State recruitment and support the Government's decentralisation plans, the Minister said.
Under legislation published yesterday, which will go before the Oireachtas in the new year, the Service Commission and the Local Appointments Commissioners will be dissolved.
The Civil Service Commission currently handles interviews for all jobs in government departments, though the system has proven to be too slow.
"The process can take months. Sometimes, candidates put on a short list have gone off to do something else by the time a job comes up," a Department of Finance official commented.
The Commission faced "particular problems during the Celtic Tiger" when recruits tended to opt for higher-paid, but riskier jobs in the private sector.
The two soon-to-be defunct bodies will be replaced by the Commission for Civil Service Appointments (CPSA) and the Public Appointments Service (PAS). Departments will be granted a licence to recruit their own staff, as long as the CPSA is satisfied that they are able to do so properly.
"The integrity and probity of the current system is unquestioned. And we want to keep it that way, so major safeguards have been built in," a senior Finance official said.
Under the system, qualifying government departments will be able to recruit directly, or to use the PAS if that option proves to be quicker and cheaper.