THE GOVERNMENT has told the International Monetary Fund that it is on course to meet its target for reducing the public service pay bill this year.
It is understood the Department of Finance has said the public service pay bill in the first quarter of the year stood at just under €4 billion.
The previous government set a target for the year to bring the public service pay bill down to €15.7 billion by the end of this year.
This would represent a saving of about €300 million on the 2010 figure.
This target for reducing the public service pay bill reflected plans to bring down the numbers employed in the public service to 301,000 by the end of the year.
Under the terms of the bailout deal reached late last year with the IMF, the EU and the European Central Bank, the Government had to give an initial progress report on public service pay and numbers after the first quarter.
This report has been submitted in recent days.
Highly placed sources said last night the Government believed it was on course to meet the pay bill target of €15.7 billion for the year set out originally in the National Recovery Plan and in the Department of Finance’s revised estimate volume.
The target for the public service pay bill could fall further if the Government introduces new initiatives, in addition to the existing moratorium on recruitment, such as a voluntary redundancy/early retirement scheme in parts of the public service later in the year.
Minister for Health James Reilly has indicated on two occasions that he wanted to see another voluntary redundancy scheme in the Health Service Executive.
Minister for Public Service Reform Brendan Howlin may look at a voluntary redundancy and early retirement scheme in the Civil Service if this is considered necessary following the current restructuring of a number of Government departments.
The Irish Timesreported last week that new Government figures were expected to show the number of staff in the public service had fallen by between 2,500 and 3,000 in the first three months of the year.
The new report is expected to say that there were about 303,000 personnel in the public service at the end of March, compared with about 305,800 at the end of last December.
Informed sources said it will show there were about 1,500 to 1,600 fewer personnel in the health sector at the end of March than at the end of 2010.
This is due mainly to the impact of the voluntary redundancy deal in the HSE.
This was put in place by the previous administration last November.
Some informed sources suggested that the numbers employed in the Civil Service at the end of March – at 36,079 – were actually ahead of the target figure for the end of the year.