THE GOVERNMENT is to review the level of holiday entitlements for staff across the public service.
The move follows revelations yesterday that some senior staff in local authorities get up to 42 days leave each year.
A spokesman for the Minister for Public Service Reform Brendan Howlin said that figures showed that “in some instances, the rate of leave has got out of sync with the norm in some areas and these will be looked at and will be reviewed”.
The spokesman repeated the intention of the Minister – first announced last month following the decision by an arbitration board in the Civil Service to reject management plans to reform privilege days – to look at the issue of standardising leave arrangement on a broader level.
The Minster’s spokesman said it was “the Government’s objective to achieve a more integrated public service with greater mobility within and between sectors”.
The spokesman added: “Overall, it is the Government’s view that the pace of reform under the Croke Park agreement has to be accelerated and this will be a key focus of Minister Howlin’s work in the coming weeks and months.”
Under the terms of the Croke Park deal regarding local authorities, the Department of the Environment and the Local Government Management Service Board has sought reforms which would put in place a standardised leave arrangement which would run from a minimum of 23 days to a maximum of 32 days. However these plans have been opposed by trade unions.
Senior management in the Civil Service have a leave entitlement of 33 days a year. The minimum national leave entitlement for all workers is 20 days a year.
Public service sources said last night that some of the additional leave available to senior local authority staff stemmed from agreements at local level several years ago to “buy out” traditional days off given to staff for church holidays.
A spokesman for the trade union Impact, which represents staff in local authorities, said last night that when a standardised leave arrangement was agreed, “nobody will have 42 days leave”.
In a statement issued last week when The Irish Timesfirst reported on the dispute over proposals to reform leave arrangements in local authorities, Impact said it was the union's position that "demands from management for reduced annual leave and a longer working week are not necessary to deliver the savings or productivity required under the Croke Park deal".
It said local authority services were being maintained despite the departure of more than 6,000 staff since 2008.
The union also noted that the changes set out in the Croke Park deal did not include a requirement for increased hours or reduced leave in the local authority sector.
The Department of the Environment and Local Government said last night that as its reform proposals had been referred to the National Implementation Body for the Croke Park agreement for clarification on a point of interpretation, the implementation of the new standardised working week – which it had planned to introduce from this month – had been postponed until this was decided.